Hunter's Fall
by Neytiel
Summary: On a distant world in the Ultima Segmentum, a war between the Imperium and the independent Protectorate of Nyria threatens to unearth ancient, buried legacies from a long-forgotten time of legends. (AU – a desolate Imperium, bereft of the protection of the legendary Astartes since the time of the Heresy, slowly falling into ruin.)
1. Ellana

_Adeptus Astra Telepathica Blackship "Emperor's Hand",_

_Deep Space, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum, _

_942.M41_

In truth, I am not sure what I expected.

When I took my first steps onto that sinister starship, striding through the thick, grinding bulkhead doors before they had fully recoiled into the walls on either side of the cargo bay, perhaps it first occurred to me that I had wandered into something I had not fully prepared myself for.

The air was hot and thin, and tasted of copper and dust. The walls were either flat grey or black, without adornments or decoration – even the customary aquilae or plaques consecrating the vessel to the Emperor's service were conspicuously absent, leaving the starship bare and spartan. The cargo bay, and everything in it, had nothing to distinguish it from a thousand others throughout the Imperium. I could have been anywhere. The whole place had a nameless banality to it, as if the ship itself was making a conscious effort not to stand out or be noticed.

I had been on a great many spaceships; in most of them you could feel something of the ship's character when you stepped beyond the threshold and walked inside. The stern pride of the Navy's warships, or the sonorous, imposing majesty of the Cult of Mars and their lumbering space-borne leviathans. Here I felt nothing much at all beyond a vague sense of anonymity and nothingness.

Reflecting on it, I suppose that was the point. It was not a ship for the living – it was for the damned, and the damned had no use for comforts and character. Only the most stern-faced and cold-hearted could be its shepherds, bearing thousands of doomed psykers to their final destinations. Most of them would find their way to Holy Terra, and would never leave there. I suppressed an involuntary shiver at the thought.

They met me as I entered – three of them, neatly bracketed by a detachment of naval troopers. The latter at least had the decency to look unsettled as I approached. As for the three Telepathica officials, I did not impress them, I think; my sole retainer was an old man who walked with a cane and appeared neither threatening nor armed, and I myself am not particularly terrifying to look at.

Of course, given my rank and purpose, I did not particularly have to concern myself with looking intimidating. My status would do that well enough for me.

The man who strode forward from the greeting party dwarfed me utterly. This was not terribly remarkable, as I am neither tall nor heavily muscled, while my opposite was both of these things in spades. Regardless, he bowed low and averted his eyes when he met me.

"Inquisitor. I greet you, humbly, in the name of the Emperor. Both my ship and I are at your service."

He did not have the bearing of a typical starship captain; most of the ones I had met were preening, self-indulgent peacocks strutting about the upper decks of their vessels, adorned in an admixture of garish and peculiar fashions taken from all across the Imperium.

This man was serious, heavily scarred, and his only adornments seemed to be weapons and explosives. He did not smile when he met me. I appreciated that; there are few who are ever genuinely pleased to see an agent of the Emperor's Inquisition. Most will feign delight, of course - and look to indulge my every possible whim while praying silently every second for me to go away. I do not begrudge them that; my presence is seldom a harbinger of anything pleasant.

I nodded at him.

"Thank you. You have had a fair voyage, I trust?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, Inquisitor."

_Except you. _He left it unspoken, of course; it was rude to imply to Inquisitors that their presence was considered disruptive. It was, of course – I had sent message by astropath that the _Emperor's Hand_ was to drop out of warp on its way back to the Segmentum Solar, remain hidden in deep space and await my arrival. Naturally, my question was not one of simple courtesy; the vagaries of warp travel meant that anything unusual at all was worth careful notation and investigation.

I gestured to the far door of the (currently almost entirely empty, save for a few crates adorned with the skull-and-cog insignia of the Mechanicus, probably containing spare parts) cargo bay.

"Shall we walk?"

The captain nodded and gestured to his retinue. Most of them promptly dispersed, save for a pair of naval troopers who followed us at a careful distance. A prudent measure. I approved.

The rest of the ship was as desolate as the cargo bay; even the lights were kept low, emitting a sickly amber light that covered everything an unpleasant off-yellow shade, and every so often we would pass sections of the wall bereft of protective casing, revealing delicate and often damaged and frayed wiring and circuitry.

A lot of ships in the Imperium were like this now – her fleets were running ragged, desperately rushing from sector to sector, crisis to crisis, putting out fires, struggling against foes on all sides. Trying to patch the holes in humanity's failing defences, keep her above the rising tide.

It wasn't working. I knew that. I wondered if the captain, in this millennia-old cargo ship that seemed to be flailing at the water to stay afloat, knew it too.

"I trust you're here to inspect the cargo?"

The alternative – that I was there because of some taint, some heresy, was too unpleasant to contemplate for him. Thankfully, this time I would not have to disappoint him.

I nodded.

"That's right. I'll need everything you have on them – names, histories, where you found them. Their talents and classifications, of course. Any special measures taken or required."

"Of course. It will be done."

"And I'll be taking one of them."

He stopped walking and looked down at me. I continued looking forwards, only half acknowledging him.

"This is most irregular, Inquisitor." He was not pleased, I could see that much.

"Yes, quite so." I replied.

"We have already stopped on Irritan and dropped off all those we found who met the criteria..."

"Yes, I'm aware. The Inquisition thanks you for your service."

"None of the tributes still on board were deemed suitable for transfer to the Scholastia."

He was repeating himself. I knew this already. _He_ knew I knew this already.

"I'd like to inspect them anyway."

"If the Inquisition feels that we have been less than forthright-"

"The Inquisition thinks no such thing. I am not here to call your competence into question. I am here to inspect the cargo."

His recalcitrance was not really unusual; I had insisted upon meeting his ship in deep space essentially on a whim. A junior Inquisitor, barely proven and without any real influence or contacts within the Telepathica to smooth the matter over. But he still found himself in the position of having to listen to me and oblige my requests.

"I'll need a room on the ship where I can look over the data, and privacy. I assure you, we won't keep you long. A day at most. Then you can be on your way, and you can forget I was ever here."

It wouldn't be that simple; we both knew that. At the same time, he could rest easy in the knowledge that I was not there to execute everyone on board for heresy. I felt that this was progress.

* * *

><p>Some hours later, I found myself leaning back in one of the ship's side rooms with my companion as we looked over a collection of data-slates holding reams of information about the ship's precious cargo. The old man – my oldest friend, in fact, and most loyal servant – looked up at me and frowned.<p>

"This is still a bad idea."

He said things like that to me a lot. I am eternally grateful to the Emperor that he is not always correct when he does. Even so, his disapproval hung in the air around us and set me on edge. I could only hope that this was one of the times when he was wrong, and my recklessness wasn't putting us all into unnecessary danger.

"Maybe." I replied, absent-mindedly. My attention was focused on the slate in my hand. Perhaps this one.

I tossed him the dataslate I was reading. It hit him in the chest and fell in his lap. His frown deepened.

"What's this?"

"Read it."

He did. His brow furrowed and he sighed.

"Valentia, Ellana. Classification beta. Twelve years old. Tell me you're not serious."

"I'm very serious. What's wrong with her?"

"Classification _beta_, Nathan. _That's_ what's wrong with her."

I grinned at him.

"Why did you think we were here, Alec?"

"I don't know. I thought you had some ridiculous notion to take one of the madmen the Telepathica had already rejected for being unstable. But this is _insane_."

"She's just a girl." I pointed out, reasonably.

"She's a _time bomb _that walks and talks. You know what their life expectancies are like. She'll go to the Throne. She _should_ go to the Throne."

It was true; psykers that powerful tended not to last very long. They flared bright and fast, and died faster. Their souls were like fountains of light in the warp's dark ocean, attracting daemons faster than moths to fire. They almost invariably went mad or found themselves swiftly possessed by something even worse, and that was the end of it.

"Unless I say otherwise."

"Unless you say otherwise – tell me you are not _seriously_ contemplating this."

"I am."

He threw Ellana's dataslate onto a pile of the others in a table in the back of the room, exasperated.

"Throne's sake, Nathan, _why?_ Hire a dozen minor talents if you want some psychic pets. Not a girl who can break a Titan in half with her brain."

I sighed at him. He had a point, but even so.

"You remember Aretas, don't you?"

"I _was_ there, Nathan. What of it?"

"We had to _blow up half a Hive_ is 'what of it', Alec."

"None who ever died for the Emperor died in vain. You know that as well as I do."

"If we'd had someone like her with us, maybe none of them would have died at all."

"Or maybe we'd have ended up putting far more than just one Hive to the torch." He said quietly. He didn't like psykers much. Powerful psykers even less so. The stronger they got, the more unstable they tended to be. There was a reason the girl was here – being a beta-level psyker meant that she was rejected out of hand as being too dangerous to safely employ.

"Nathan, I know what you're feeling. We had to burn a lot of good people, and you're wondering if you did the right thing. You're wondering if there was something else you could have done."

He wasn't wrong.

"They send these kinds of psykers to the Throne for a reason. They're too dangerous to use for anything else."

"Maybe we need a little danger." I said quietly.

"What do you mean?" He frowned.

"I mean we're _losing_, Alec. We both know it – we're surrounded on every side and things are only getting worse."

He set the dataslate to the side, gently, and tiredly sat back in his chair. In that moment, he looked every one of his hundred years.

"I know we are. But do you really think taking in this girl will change that?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I just know that I have to do something. I can't do what everyone else is doing. We're patching up the dam but the water's rising anyway, and everyone's pretending that all we have to do is what we've always done, and the Imperium will survive. We _both_ know that's not true."

"Throne's sake, Nathan." He sighed. He knows that there's no changing my mind once I've decided. But what he said next surprised me. "At least _talk_ to the girl before you conscript her."

I blinked.

"You want me to talk to her?"

He rolled his eyes. I laughed, despite myself. It was a gesture that seemed _far_ too petulant on someone of his dignified age.

"Yes, Nathan. Perhaps then you'll see this madness for what it is."

I stood up and grinned broadly at him.

"Well, I suppose it can't hurt."

* * *

><p>They were clusters of bodies wearing rags huddled into dark corners, struggling to get as far away from the thick black rods protruding from the floor as they could. They screamed and moaned and clawed at each other, desperate and terrified. I saw bodies on the floor, patches and spatters and trails of blood where the psykers had fallen upon their own in a frenzy of violence and fear.<p>

We were observing them from on high. I felt a little like some ominous, black-feathered hawk staring down at a nest of rats. It was not a pleasant thing to feel when regarding one's fellow man. They had been reduced to something less than human – just creatures in a cage, driven mad by a dozen infernal devices specifically tailored to restrain and hurt their kind. There were the null rods in the floor, and a dozen other contraptions lurking invisibly behind the walls, I knew.

It is easier not to think of them as people. Just cattle to the slaughter. Things, without hopes and dreams, and fears of their own. I have, much to my detriment, never been able to think that way.

I knew then that I couldn't stride in there and talk to the girl in that place; it tore at me, more than it should. I can't imagine what that girl must have been going through.

I have often been called soft-hearted; under ordinary circumstances this would not be much of an insult, but it is a scornful appellation for an Inquisitor. Perhaps it is true. I know that watching those psykers huddled up in those rooms and those cages will haunt me where it would not others of my order. I also know that, unmoving, unfeeling, I have given the order to put over a million people to the torch. Things are rarely as simple as we would like them to be.

I think Alec knew what I was going to do before I gave the order. He clutched at my arm with the kind of iron grip possessed only by the ferociously strong and the old.

"Nathan, that's _insane_."

I smiled.

"You're the one who told me I should talk to her."

"Yes. With guns pointed at her and a null rod to threaten her with."

Now I was the one frowning.

"And how will she see me then?"

"She's not a _girl_, Nathan. She's a _witch_. The strongest one you've ever dealt with. That she's a child doesn't change that."

"She's both, Alec. That's exactly the point. That's why I'm considering this at all."

I took a deep breath and looked down at the teeming, frightened masses. I wondered if she was in there somewhere. She was just a little girl; I probably wouldn't even be able to see her from so far away.

"It's the only way she'll ever trust me. If I walk in there, between those null rods, flanked by a dozen men with guns, she'll only ever see me as the enemy. Just another monster who didn't trust her. Just like the people who took her from the only home she'd ever known."

"They were doing the Emperor's work." He said stiffly.

"Yes. They were. They are." I replied. "Do you think she knows that? Do you think that, even if I told her that, she would care?"

"I suppose not." He allowed.

"None who died for the Emperor died in vain. It's still better to live in his name than to die in it. I'd like to offer her that chance."

"That doesn't mean you have to compromise yourself to do it."

"Yes. It does. I can't just pretend to trust her. Besides. She's a telepath. You really think she won't know?"

Alec muttered something extremely uncharitable about my lineage under his breath. I gracefully refrained from retorting and smiled at him.

"Faith, old friend." I reminded him.

"I have faith in the Emperor. I don't have to have it in mad witch-children."

I smiled softly.

"The Emperor had faith in humans. Who am I to disagree with Him?"

* * *

><p>So I gave the order; I had the girl taken away from her fellows and placed in solitary confinement where she presumably now waited for me. I had her taken away from the null rods and the other tools, where she could – if she wished – freely use her powers as she desired. The captain protested. Alec protested. I am informed that some other Adeptus official who was travelling on board the ship protested most strenuously. I overruled them all.<p>

Then I sequestered myself in the side room Alec and I had requisitioned earlier and prayed to the Emperor that I was right. Before long, one of the troopers entered.

"The girl has been prepared for you, Inquisitor." _The girl has been prepared. How delightful. _

She was... quite ordinary. This was my first thought upon entering the room, despite all the things I knew she must be capable of. She was a small girl, red-haired, quite pale. She sat quietly in her chair, hands resting in her lap. It was not until I took my first step into the room that I noticed she was shaking. Her little hands balled into fists and clutched at the rags the crew had given her. She did not look at me.

I sat down. I was not sure what to say. What do you say to someone who has been taken from everything they know? How can you offer your sympathies? Should you? I was a stranger to her; it would mean nothing.

"Hello, Ellana." I said, as softly as I could.

She looked at me. Her eyes were startlingly green and clear. And quite terrified. I do not think that looking at me helped matters much; I am told that I have particularly harsh, cold features, despite the errant comments people have made about my nature.

"Hi."

"Are you alright?"

It was a stupid question. I will freely admit that.

"I'm okay." I was impressed that she managed even that.

She paused.

"Can I go home now?"

I think she knew what I was going to say before I said it.

"I'm afraid not."

"... oh." She sounded so very small when she said that. She closed her eyes and seemed to withdraw into herself; she drew her knees up to her chest in the chair, curled up and buried her head in her hands.

My heart went out to her; perhaps it should not have. What we do is _necessary_. I know that. I am an Inquisitor; none know that more than I. But it is one thing to know that suffering must happen... it is quite another to watch a little girl's heart break in front of you. Even knowing, though, I felt a rush of irrational fury towards the people who had done this to her – and at the uncaring universe that meant that I had to condone it anyway.

Instantly, her eyes snapped up and narrowed at me, and she was not such a scared little girl anymore.

My heart froze in my chest and a sensation of icy cold swept its way through my body. In the empty room there was a sudden rush of air; the table between us – the table that had been _bolted down –_ was torn from the floor and smashed into the wall as if it weighed nothing at all.

She was a telepath. I had known that. And I knew in the brief moment of frozen time between the instants when Ellana had ripped the table from the floor with no effort at all and then turned her attention to me that perhaps I had damned us all. My chair was blasted from under me and smashed like so much useless junk, but I was already on my feet.

I do not look particularly physically imposing. But I have always been fast. I had my pistol drawn and pointed at Ellana's head in less than a second. It cast an eerie blue glow across the room and Ellana's bright eyes widened with fright.

We stood there, both of us frozen, psyker and Inquisitor. I could try to shoot her. It might work. It was possible. She was a child, probably not in control of her powers. I knew that I could make that choice. I am cold enough to do it.

I am cold enough a man to kill a frightened girl and jettison her frozen corpse into the dead night of space. The air around me seemed to get _thicker_, almost. Pressure was building. She could crush me. She had the power to do it. I doubted there would even be much left of me to bury. Not much time. Had to choose one way or the other.

"Don't make me do this, Ellana."

"You're going to hurt me." She was all pained, frightened accusation.

"No, I'm not." It was true. I was surprised myself that it was true.

"Don't _lie_. You're not supposed to lie." She sounded petulant. I almost smiled.

"I'm not lying."

She seemed to consider this.

"You were mad."

"Yes. I was. I am."

"Why?"

"Because it isn't right. What they did to you."

She didn't say anything. We stood there, Inquisitor and psyker. I think, if I had so chose, I could have killed her in that moment, while she considered. I don't think she would have even tried to stop me. I buried those thoughts – forcefully reminding myself once again that the girl was a _telepath_ – and placed my pistol gently back in its holster.

Ellana looked at me, incredulous, for a few seconds. Then she wilted, and sunk back against the wall. I sat down. I was, truthfully, not sure what to do next. When I am nervous, I often find myself simply talking – so I did that, then. In a cage with a little girl who could kill me with her mind, I just went to what was most comfortable.

"The truth is, I want to take you with me."

She looked at me, startled. That, she was not expecting.

"I want to help you. But I didn't come here just for that. I couldn't have." I paused, considering. "I suppose I'm here to offer you a job."

She didn't say anything. I wasn't surprised; what do you say to something like that? She was _twelve_, by the Throne.

"It's not much of a life, sometimes. It's hard. You'll see all the worst sides of people." Hadn't she already? A dozen images flashed through my mind, unbidden. No. Probably not. "But it's a _life_."

"I won't lie to you. These people, this ship, where they're going... it's a journey you'll never return from. They'll take you to the Throne and burn you up until there's nothing left." I had to tell her the truth. It's a fault of mine – I could not lie to the girl. I could not ask her to take up arms and follow me into hell without telling her first what she would be signing up for. "I'm offering you a path away from that."

I know that many Inquisitors demand rather than ask. They will lie, steal, force people into their service. I do not judge them for that – we all do the Emperor's work, in our own way. But I cannot do what they do. I am not those men.

"I know you're a child. I don't want to put this on your shoulders. If I had another choice I'd take it. But I'm _asking_ you. I know it's not much of a choice. But it's yours to make."

She was very quiet for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was soft and she did not tremble at all.

"You can really take me away?"

"I can."

"Will you protect me?"

How can she trust me like that? Throne, I don't know. Were I in her shoes, I wouldn't trust me.

"As best I can. For as long as I can."


	2. An Eye in the Stars

_The Orrery, _

_Deep Space, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum, _

_942.M41_

"The Telepathica aren't happy." The voice was melodic, feminine, and in this moment made up of equal parts amusement and disapproval.

"They're usually not." I replied, keeping my tone cheerful. "What seems to be the problem this time?"

"Oh, something about you _absconding with one of their untrained psykers._"

"Ah. That. Yes, I did hope they'd have forgotten about that by now."

"It was only two weeks ago!"

"That's my point. Don't they have anything better to worry about?"

She rolled her eyes at me, trying and only partially succeeding to stifle a grin. I sat down and relaxed, breathing a sigh of relief that I didn't know I'd been holding. It was good to be home. Even if the dear, sweet Alina – one of my newer acolytes, with something of a gift for diplomacy – was currently insisting on badgering me about all the toes I'd managed to step on while I was away. I looked up at her from the armchair I was half-sunk into. Despite my evident lack of concern, she looked worried.

"This is serious, Nate. They've sent protests by astropath to the Ordo chambers on Irritan, and Lord Thale on Malchar."

"Malchar? What's the old snake doing there?"

"I don't know. That's not the point. They're insisting that the Inquisition sanction you, take the girl back and make assurances that this kind of thing won't happen again."

"I'm sure they are. I trust they're aware that we'll reject every one of those requests."

She arched an eyebrow at me. Obviously she did not share my optimistic appraisal of the situation.

"And why will we do that?"

I sat up in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees.

"Because the Telepathica doesn't _care_ what happens to one lone psyker girl, no matter how they classified her. She was going to go to the Throne _anyway._ They're only pretending this is an issue because they think if they kick up a fuss about it, they can get concessions from the Inquisition on something or other, or at least demand a favour somewhere down the line in exchange."

"I see." Alina didn't seem particularly mollified. I wasn't too surprised; I had recruited her from minor nobility, where everyone generally aspired to or at least pretended to possess a higher degree of courtesy. Me flying around local space issuing blanket demands to the Adeptus flew in the face of that upbringing, and on her homeworld would be considered unspeakably rude.

"Alina, trust me. We'll be hearing from Thale soon enough – he'll pretend to reprimand me, he'll tell the Adeptus whatever he needs to tell them to smooth this all over, and we can all get back to ignoring each other again. No harm done."

She sighed, and nodded.

"Okay. Fine. It still wouldn't have hurt to at least inform me beforehand."

"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't plan on it."

"Then why did you do it at all? Why risk offending the Telepathica over one girl?"

I shrugged, and ran my hands through my hair. This was not a question I had particularly looked forward to answering. I didn't have an answer for myself, so I certainly wasn't looking forward to explaining it to anyone else.

"I don't know. I heard about the ship coming through from a contact, and..." I waved a hand, frustrated. "I don't know why I did it. I felt like I had to, and I don't know _why_."

I gave her a shaky laugh. "We need a psyker on the team, and the ship was full of them?"

Alina wasn't impressed.

"So you decided to steal a twelve year old girl with no formal training, something like three times the raw power of anyone on the local Inquisition's roster – that we know of, at least – incensed the entire local department of a major Imperial institution, basically on a _whim_?"

"That's about right, yes."

She threw up her hands in despair.

"I'd ask you if you'd gone mad while you were gone, but I'm sure Alec has already done that."

"He may have made some comments of that nature, yes." I allowed.

I am loathe to invoke the Emperor to explain mundane trifles or to excuse my choices; enough happens in this universe by sheer coincidence or mortal malice, and it seems the height of hubris to presume His hand in your personal affairs. Even so, I _had_ felt compelled to board that ship. And once I was there, my own inquisitive nature and inherent stubbornness finished off the matter.

Recklessness has always been a trait of mine; nine times out of ten, I will leap before I look. I say it often enough – we're losing. We can sit at the table and move the pieces around, but all it takes is one glance at this particular regicide board to know which way the wind is blowing. Maybe what we need now is not another player, but someone to run screaming into the room and kick the table over. Or perhaps Alec is right and I really have gone mad.

"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you I thought the Emperor wanted me to rescue her."

Alina laughed at me, took a dataslate from her pack, and handed it to me.

"Not a chance, Inquisitor." She departed, shaking her head in exasperation.

Well. It was worth a try.

I leaned back in my chair again and laced my hands behind my head. All levity aside, I _had_ taken a risk – not only in saving the girl, but in bringing her here. I could only hope it would pay off. In any case, I was finally able to put all those thoughts out of my mind for the time being and simply relax – I was finally home. I felt a weight lift from my shoulders as I lounged in the common area by myself, allowing my mind to wander.

"Home" for me was a space station located somewhere in deep space in the Aurigan sub-sector. It had lain dormant for perhaps centuries before my followers and I had discovered it by accident when reviewing some of the data logs of a derelict Mechanicus explorator vessel. It had not taken much to restore it to working order, and now it served as a base of operations for myself and my acolytes.

We think that once it was some kind of deep space observation and data storage facility; unfortunately most of the data stored here from ancient times is irretrievable for various reasons – much of it was corrupted, and much of the rest is heavily encrypted and beyond our abilities to decode, and while we could likely invite the Mechanicus on board to examine the data, it is quite likely that they would insist on taking possession of the station entirely, and its secrets would be forever lost to me.

The arm of the Inquisition is long indeed, but there are some things – such as insisting on retaining potentially valuable archaeotech or lost information – that a junior Inquisitor simply cannot do, and one of them, unfortunately, is thwarting the designs of the priesthood of Mars. So we neglect to mention the old station's data stores, and the Mechanicus leaves us alone. Occasionally we summon a tech-adept to assist us with maintenance, or with the ongoing process that is repairing the station's weapons systems and defences, but other than that we have little to do with the Cult of the Machine.

Really, we have little to do with anyone out here – we keep the Orrery operational with little more than a skeleton crew, all of whom were personally selected by either Alec or myself. Being under-manned makes us vulnerable if we're ever attacked, but the less people who know about us – and the more trustworthy they are – makes us less likely to ever be hit at all.

* * *

><p>Hours later, I found myself wandering the familiar halls and corridors of my station – and I found myself, as I so often do, drawn to the orrery for which we named our base. In ancient times, I am told, an orrery was simply a model of the local star system. Ours, however, is far more expansive, and – if I do say so – far more impressive.<p>

The orrery room is utterly empty save for an immense hololithic display of the entirety of known space that stretches out and fills the whole cavernous expanse of the chamber.

Its worth is incalculable, though regrettably with the local records almost entirely inaccessible or destroyed, its strategic value is rather limited.

Even so, to be able to walk between the stars – even if it is just a beautiful illusion – is a gift I have always been grateful for. The simulated reflection of a billion stars shimmers softly in the darkness, an ocean of light and radiance. Conspicuously – and curiously – absent is a depiction of the Eye of Terror itself, that baleful scarlet welt that tears open the skies in the Segmentum Obscurus. I suspect it was a deliberate omission; even looking at recorded images and translucent echoes of such things can be dangerous.

This place reminds me of our significance and our incredible, perilous fragility both. The Imperium is an empire that numbers in the hundreds of thousands of worlds; and yet the galaxy itself holds _billions_ of worlds, stars beyond counting. There is so much that we have not seen – so many things we have yet even to _glimpse_ that are waiting for us in the depths of space.

If I were to have the orrery show me the silhouette of the Imperium, she would be but a slender spider's web against the galaxy's endless sea of stars. We have seen millions of worlds – settled a fraction of the places we've found, explored countless more, but we have barely even scratched the surface of what is out there. Of course, given the relative hostility of the universe we have uncovered so far, perhaps this is for the best. Emperor willing, perhaps one day we will be able to once again forge onwards - perhaps the days of the Great Crusade will come again; but for now, we must struggle bitterly, tooth and nail, simply to cling onto what we have.

It takes a few awkward hand movements – and some trial and error – to convince the Orrery to focus upon the tiny sub-sector where I have found my calling. The Aurigan sub-sector, on the borders of "Imperial space" - though I have often questioned the wisdom of such questions of territory when we control such a tiny fraction of space itself, connected by a perilous network of erratic and ever-shifting warp routes - varies between near-lawlessness and bastions of martial law where Imperial forces have concentrated in response to threats from outside.

The four star systems in the local sector controlled by the Imperium, I have highlighted with a faint golden light. Grimly, I note the livid red expanse that stretches out around them; the domains of the Land of the Heralds – at least, this is the closest translation we have – a domain of madness and Chaos, where crazed sorcerers and their legions of horrors and cultists hold sway.

It says a great deal about the current state of affairs in the Imperium that the borders, such as they are, between our realms have remained silent for the better part of a century – though the moral imperative for us to reclaim those worlds for the Imperium and put the heretics to the torch has been there since the beginning, the political will to do so has manifested only recently, and comes from selfish ambition and blind fanaticism more than any practical concerns.

Soon, there will be open war – but given the state of the Imperium, we cannot count on reinforcements, and our local forces are outnumbered three to one _at least_, by the latest estimates. But the Lord-Commander and the Ministorum will have us invade anyway, even if it means marching a billion souls to the slaughter.

I sigh, and activate my vox communicator. Time to check on our newest arrival.

"Layne? Are you there?"

The vox crackles for a moment.

"I'm here, boss. What do you need?"

Emelia Layne is one of the most dangerous people I have ever known, but you could never tell by talking to her. She's cheerful, friendly and easy to talk to, which is why I have her presently standing watch over Ellana in the ship. If Ellana's the type to spook easily, then Layne is the person least likely to set her off.

"How is she?"

"She's sleeping." I hear her shift slightly over the vox. "Hard to believe she could kill us all. She's just a girl."

"Believe it." I said grimly. "But... you're right. She is just a girl. Probably terrified beyond belief."

"Don't worry, Inquisitor. I won't make any loud noises or say 'boo' at her too much."

"I have complete faith in you. Though if you do end up setting the poor girl off, try to make a lot of noise before she throws you into space. Knock something over if you can."

"Uh huh. Sure, boss." Layne replied dryly, and cut the transmission. I chuckled.

While it had been weeks since we'd taken Ellana from the ship, she had spent much of the time sleeping – I had kept her sedated for much of the journey, using specialised equipment specifically adapted for use on psykers. I would have preferred not to – but taking a powerful young psyker through the warp is risky enough, let alone one without any formal training and more power than is probably healthy. I had explained the dangers to her beforehand, and she seemed to understand.

"_It's okay. I trust you. I could use some sleep, anyway." _

Her words keep echoing back and forth in my head; I am not accustomed to being trusted so readily, especially given my station. As an inquisitor, people will hide things from me that they would not hide from anyone else, simply out of ignorance and fear of how I might respond. We are a little-understood order at best; people fear what they do not understand, and something one does not understand that _also_ has virtually unlimited authority to persecute you tends to terrify most people.

Of course, our vaunted limitless power often only exists in theory, as my latest entanglement with the Telepathica only proves. We have a great deal of wealth and influence, but in terms of concrete assets the Inquisition is dwarfed quite utterly by the other major branches of the Imperium. Our ability to perform the duties of our office is, to a great extent, dependent upon the goodwill and cooperation of our allies. I am usually able to secure the latter. The former, unfortunately, I have more trouble with.

Ah, well. I do what I can, and trust the Emperor to take care of the rest.

I sweep my arms wide, and slowly draw them in closer – the stars surrounding me shimmer lightly, and start to make a languid spin inwards toward the empty space between my hands; stars, comets, supernovae all, spinning quicker and quicker until, at last, with a final great rush, they flare brightly, incandescent, before filling the room with a flash of white light and vanishing into nothing, leaving me in darkness.

I rolled my shoulders, feeling them crack and ache as I did so. I must have been more tired than I'd thought.

That, I reflected dimly, is one thing they tend not to warn you about when you sign up with the Inquisition. Likelihood of death, probability of eternal damnation, these things they warn you about. The lack of sleep? They tend to leave that part out. Thankfully, I reflected further, I own a space station. With this thought in mind, and sleep deprivation in my bones, I strolled from the orrery room.

* * *

><p>I have quarters near the station's core; from here I can hear the gentle, resonant thrum of the station's generator, a distant, steady heartbeat that always reminds me of peace and quieter times spent here away from the constant warfare and scheming I find in the Aurigan sub-sector. Of course, if the priests and the new Lord-Commander have their way, even this secret refuge between the stars will not be safe.<p>

I drape my coat over the back of a chair and regard myself in the mirror for a moment. I look terrible, I note; a lack of sleep combined with eating starship rations (not to mention suffering from a complete absence of sunlight) for weeks on end has left me almost comically pale; the rings under my eyes are an almost livid purple against my skin, and I have not shaved since I was last here. My eyes are cold blue and bloodshot; the contrast only serving to make me look even _more_ unhealthy.

It's a wonder they didn't simply throw me off the Emperor's Hand the second I boarded; I am hardly presentable, and one might tend to be suspicious of some haggard near-corpse waving around an Inquisitorial rosette and high-clearance pass-codes.

Though perhaps the captain just didn't want to anger someone who looked half-dead, part-mad, who was _also_ carrying enough firepower to make some armoured vehicles feel inadequate. I took my plasma pistol from my waist, looked at it askance, smiled wryly, and set it gently down on my desk amongst a pile of dataslates and papers. There were a few other weapons in my room; a couple hunting rifles slung up on the walls, a few autopistols, an antique lasgun I had looted from a museum in the middle of a gunfight...

There was also a suit of Imperial Guard-issue flak armour lying carelessly in pieces across the floor, along with a chestpiece of carapace and a few torn-up shreds of cameleoline. Ah, home. No place like it in all the galaxy. I trod carefully on the way to my bed, dodging spent ammo clips and other various things I had left scattered across the floor the last time I was here. I jumped the last two feet, landed face first on my oversized bed, and fell asleep almost instantly.


	3. Revolutions

Author's Note: Hello there, gentle reader! If you enjoyed reading, please take a moment to drop me a review at the end, even if it's just "not bad, keep writing" or "please stop, you're hurting my brain!" It'd mean the world to me. Thanks in advance!

* * *

><p><em>The Orrery, <em>

_Deep Space, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum, _

_942.M41_

I awoke to something pushing against my shoulder and glaring light stabbing me in the eyes. I was then faced, as I so often am, with the choice of whether to deal with a harsh and uncaring world or insulate myself within the reassuring cocoon that was my oversized bed.

Naturally, I chose the latter; I screwed my eyes shut tighter against the insistent light and, with the kind of dramatic effort only exerted by dying men and people who had just woken up, pulled myself over so that I was facing away from the infernal glow-globe on my ceiling trying to disturb my rest.

Unfortunately, the person trying to wake me up had other ideas. The next thing I felt was something smacking me in the back of the head.

"Ow." I protested loudly. My attacker stifled a laugh. I would have glared, but I don't think the wall I was facing would have been able to properly relay my irritation.

"Ah! You're awake." The relish in her voice was evident.

"Good morning, Lina." I deliberately ground out the words in a half-hearted attempt to scare her off. It didn't seem to work; I suppose even Inquisitors do not have the luxury of being terrifying when they've just woken up and aren't wielding bolters.

"Afternoon, actually. You slept for quite a while."

I turned back over to face her and, propping my head up using the wall, shrugged the covers down to my waist. I noticed, for the briefest of moments, Alina's eyes flicker downwards. I arched an eyebrow at her and smiled wryly.

"I'm up here, you know."

She blushed and averted her eyes for a moment.

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"I could put some clothes on if it would help you concentrate." I continued, grinning.

"Oh, no, don't trouble yourself on my account."

"As my lady wishes..." I chuckled and raised myself up so that I was leaning against the wall. The metal was cold and rough against my back, and I shivered. Alina glared reproachfully at me.

I took a moment to admire her, standing there so awkwardly in the middle of my cabin, her feet carefully planted in the few spots of visible floor between all the guns, books and armour. She was beautiful; slender, with raven-coloured hair tied back in a ponytail and blue eyes only a shade darker than mine. She had pale skin that was almost radiant in the light of my cabin, and sharp features softened by her smile.

"_Your_ lady, Inquisitor?" She smirked at me.

"Hmm." I considered. "Well, I suppose I _am_ a bit old for you."

"Mm, that's true. Do you need help getting up? Shall I fetch your cane for you?"

"Children used to have more respect for their elders, you know." I mock complained.

"Did they? Well, it was so long ago, it must have been before my time..."

I laughed and rolled myself out of bed. I wasn't _completely_ naked beneath the sheets, but Alina still turned away, muttering something under her breath about inquisitors and propriety.

I retrieved a loose-fitting black robe from beneath an old, battered copy of _The Spheres of Longing_, my Inquisitorial rosette and plasma pistol from my desk, and a small dataslate that I often used to note things down.

I rolled my shoulders and stretched a few times, feeling the layer of fatigue that had settled overnight peel away as I moved about the room, navigating between Alina and my possessions with practiced ease.

After a minute or so, I felt almost completely awake, ready to face just about anything. I have often heard many Inquisitors complain of the infirmities of age; decades of fighting and hard living – and worse things – take their toll on anyone. Old wounds and injuries, phantom pains, broken bones and fractures that never healed properly or fully; the hazards of our calling, I'm afraid – though I suffer from practically none of these things.

I am forty-two years old; middle-aged by the standards of most places in the Imperium, very young by those of the Inquisition. Despite this, I have the appearance of a man just out of adolescence – as an Inquisitor, I have access to the best medical technology the Imperium has to offer and rejuvenat treatments that will keep me young for a very long time. An inquisitor can live for a very long time, if he's careful, and if he's lucky, and I've been more thorough than most about maintaining my health.

Some people would call it simple vanity, and I won't deny that the prospect of remaining young and healthy for centuries is an attractive one. Most inquisitors wait until they start to feel the weight of decades upon them before starting up the extensive regimen of life-extension drugs and treatments that slow the aging process to a crawl; I started them the second I had enough influence to acquire them.

In this line of work, slowing down even a little at the wrong moment can kill you. When the lives of thousands can depend upon your every action, and even fractional bits of strength can make the difference between turning aside some monster's chainsword or dying on the end of it, we cannot afford to grow slow or weak, in body or mind.

I turned around to face Alina. Her gaze was still fixed firmly on the far wall. I shook my head, amused, and touched her shoulder to get her attention. She jumped a little, then turned and glared reproachfully at me.

I met her eyes for a moment and smiled gently. As fun as it was to tease the poor girl, I knew she wouldn't have walked in here and woken me up without good cause. Something was happening, and it wasn't likely to be anything good. I took my hand off her shoulder and used it to stretch out the opposite arm. Alina was dutifully quiet until I returned my attention to her.

"What's going on, Lina?"

She nodded, all business again.

"A few hours ago we received message by astropath from Inquisitor Lord Thale on Malchar. The Lord Commander wants you on Idira."

I frowned and sat down on the edge of my bed.

"Idira? Why?"

"He's afraid that there's going to be another uprising, and he wants someone there to keep things in check while they launch the invasion."

I was silent for good long moment.

"So they're invading after all."

"It seems so." Alina said quietly.

I didn't have to say much else; we both knew how much I regarded it as a suicidal venture. With it, the Lord Commander might well have signed the death warrants of everyone in the Aurigan sub. I felt suddenly hopeless; I was powerless to change the Lord Commander's mind, and doubtless everyone who agreed with me who _was_ in a position to change it had failed to do so. What could I do on Idira that would mean anything in the face of that?

"Did he ask for me specifically?"

"I don't know. I think so."

"What does he want me to do? Shoot everyone and be done with it? Idira's rebelled three times since we conquered it, and didn't calm down even after Thale wiped half of Valice off the map."

Alina shrugged hopelessly.

"I don't know, Nate. He just wants you there to 'resolve the situation', that's all the message said."

I sighed.

"I'm sorry, Lina. It's not your fault."

"I know. I just wish there was something more I could do to help."

Her and me both; Alina was good with people, a natural diplomat. Unfortunately, standard operating practice with secessionists and rebels was just to shoot them in the head and not bother with negotiations. So she was stuck here, far from home, with little to do to help out. That said, even with all my power and authority, I wasn't sure how much I could do to fix Idira's problems, either.

"How bad is it?"

"Pretty bad, I'd guess, for the Lord Commander to involve himself personally. For them to want an Inquisitor at all, rather than just handing it off to local Arbites."

_Or maybe the Lord Commander just wants me out of the way while he launches his crusade to suicide-by-heretic_, I thought darkly. I hadn't made my opposition to the crusade any particular secret, and it was probable that he had at least heard of it in passing. Technically the Lord Commander had no authority to command the Inquisition to send anyone anywhere, but the political reality of his station meant that if he asked for something, he'd probably get it.

Idira. It had been the crown jewel of the only other notable power that existed out here; I wasn't too familiar with the details of the conquest – I'd never even been there before – but I knew that the remnants of that state were still lurking around, bordered with Imperial space in some sliver of territory not occupied by us or the Chaos domain of the Heralds. They had called themselves the Protectorate, and as far as I knew, hated us every bit as bitterly as the servants of Chaos themselves.

The crusade to shove them out of this sector had been horribly bloody; they had made extensive use of blasphemous and forbidden technologies to fight us, and when the crusade was declared officially concluded, the Mechanicus decried our reluctance to press the matter as borderline heresy and has been baying for blood ever since.

"And now they want me there to fix it. Don't they know diplomacy isn't my strong suit?"

"Perhaps he's hoping you'll blow the planet up." Alina offered.

I laughed.

"Oh, certainly. Then he could just have me executed for wasting resources. But no; Idira's too important, and I'm not important _enough_. He wouldn't waste his time with elaborate schemes if my disdain for his crusade really bothered him enough to want me dead."

"Well, nothing else for it then. Let the others know; we'll head out as soon as we're ready."

Alina nodded, then paused.

"And Ellana?"

"Her too. I can't leave her here alone, not after everything she's been through, and we'll need to start her training immediately anyway. Send word to Theodore and have him meet us on Idira."

"Aye, Inquisitor. Was there anything else?"

"I don't think so, Alina. Thank you."

She nodded once, turned on her heel and departed. I'd already turned my attention to one of the stacks of dataslates sitting on my desk when she spoke again, her voice soft and quiet.

"Good luck, Nathan."

"Hm?" I replied, absent-mindedly.

"On Idira." She clarified quickly. "Good luck."

I looked at her, confused.

"What? Why?" Sometimes my eloquence startles even me.

"Well, it's often customary to wish friends good luck when they depart on voyages from which they might not return." She replied, her voice wry.

I slapped my forehead.

"You're coming with us, Lina."

She looked surprised.

"Wait, what? I won't be any use; I can't shoot anyone, you've seen me try!"

"Well, maybe I'll just give the rebels half of Idira. I'll need someone to handle the negotiations. The particulars; who gets what river, and all that."

"You can't be serious."

I mused on that for a moment.

"Well, if I do that then at least no one will ever ask me to deal with matters of secession ever again."

"And you'll be dead. Because they'll shoot you."

"True. I suppose we'll have to go with Plan A after all. Shoot everyone, let the Emperor sort them out."

I picked up the chestpiece of carapace armour lying on the floor, laid it on my desk with a resounding crash, and begun to pull off some of the damaged plate sections.

"Go on, Lina. I'm sure you don't want to stand there watching me break precious bits of armour that will doubtlessly result in my death somewhere down the line."

I turned slightly and looked at her over my shoulder. She was still there in the doorway, hovering on the threshold.

"And bring a few guns with you when you pack for Idira. Even if you can't hit the broad side of a Titan I'll feel better if you're carrying something that's at least _theoretically_ capable of putting holes in people."

She laughed and grinned at me, then offered a mock curtsey.

"As my lord commands."

Then she departed, still smiling. I watched her go.

* * *

><p>My combat team was assembling in the cargo bay. I'd left Emelia in charge of weapons detail; judging by the sight that greeted me as I entered, she was under the impression that we were going to be personally fighting a small war.<p>

She had our heavy weapons specialist, Rook, carrying two massive ceramite crates, one atop the other, from one corner of the bay towards the open door of our assault shuttle. Each crate looked roughly large enough to contain several humans quite comfortably, with room to spare, and I suspected that were I to try and lift them, I would strain or break several very important parts of my anatomy.

Rook the ogryn, however, seemed to be having little trouble with the weight, his massive arms – each one larger around than my entire waist – swaying back and forth as he ambled cheerfully across the bay. He clanked up the steps and disappeared from view, having to duck his head to enter the ship. When he reappeared, he lifted one of his slab-like hands to wipe his forehead and made his way back towards the ominously large pile of crates that contained our weapons supplies for our mission to Idira.

Even amongst ogryns, Rook was huge. Emelia had once said that he was to most ogryns as most ogryns were to ordinary humans; he was absolutely massive, incredibly strong, and surprisingly quick for a creature of his size.

I remembered the first time I had met him; it had been just a day or so after I'd sought to recruit Alina way from her noble house. They had accepted, with the condition that she be allowed to bring along one of her house's retainers to ensure her safety – as it turned out, that had been Rook. She had arrived at my ship followed by an ogryn so massive that the ground shook slightly with his approach. Since then, he'd proven himself indispensable.

"We _do_ have a power lifter for this sort of thing, you know." I told Emelia, who looked up at me and grinned widely.

"Rook likes having something to do." She replied.

She looked over at the ogryn, who was busying himself with more weapons crates.

"Besides, it's not like we have anything else that's heavy enough to give him a workout."

It was true. Usually we had to clear out the cargo bay and turn up the artificial gravity in there just to get him to break a sweat. Ogryns usually didn't have to train much – they were naturally inclined to herculean strength from the cradle – but Rook occasionally felt the need. I had asked him about it once; he had looked down at me from his great height, and told me in his rumbling voice:

_"Rook bodyguard. Rook protect everyone." _

"True enough." I arched an eyebrow at her. "Do you really think we'll need this many high explosives?"

Emelia shrugged, the grin still present on her face.

"Well, I figure, sometimes a girl's just got to blow up a skyscraper." Her expression turned serious. "Besides. Better to have 'em and not need 'em, than to need 'em and..."

"I hear that." I said. "Of course, I remain eternally optimistic that it won't come to that."

"Yeah. Often seems to, though." She sounded pensive. "I just wish..." She trailed off, looking uncertain.

"Hm?"

"I wish these people would just stop for a fucking minute, y'know?" She said suddenly, with surprising vehemence. "I mean, there's so much out there that we've got to deal with, and instead we've got humans killing each other in the streets while there's greenskins and Emperor-knows-what over the hills waiting to cut us _all_ to bits and stick our heads on spikes."

"I know. These people, though, they think they're fighting for their freedom. There's not much we can do to persuade them otherwise."

Emelia narrowed her eyes at me.

"Tell me you don't think these people have a point."

"I understand them, that's all. What they're fighting for. At least, what they think they're fighting for. These people, they've grown up on one world, lived there all their lives. They don't know anything else. One day, we turn up, drive off the only government they've ever known, give them a whole new set of rules to live by..."

"Hmph." Emelia grunted irritably. I frowned.

"What's the matter, Em?"

She sighed in response, and ran a hand through her hair.

"It's like you said, Inquisitor." She swallowed. She looked quite small, all of a sudden; Emelia was a little shorter than me, and quite slender, all things considered, but she never really _seemed_ it. Some people always seem larger than life, and she was one of them.

"We're not winning, are we?"

"No." I said softly.

"That's what I mean. Things are getting worse everywhere, and I'm sick of seeing good people die because we're too busy killing each other to stand together."

"You're right." I looked over again at the rather excessive arsenal slowly being transported into the shuttle for delivery to our ship currently lurking quietly on the edge of the system. Rook was carrying another crate into the shuttle's hold – this one marked "Danger – High Explosives" and bearing the cog-symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

"For now, we'll just have to have faith." I said. She looked up at me and met my eyes.

"Faith, and superior firepower." She replied.

* * *

><p>"You know, I could just assassinate them all for you."<p>

"That would be helpful if I knew who needed assassinating. I don't think the rebels are going to be so helpful as to give us a list of names and faces of all their informants in government."

"I guess not. That'd be too easy. Wish they would, though." He added wistfully.

The sniper rifle was almost comically large next to the boy who owned it. Admittedly, he had just turned seventeen – so not quite a _boy_, perhaps – but he was so much younger than me, and slight for his age, that it was difficult to think of him as anything else. He was brown-haired and pale, lanky, all bone and wiry muscle. His eyes were hazel, half closed, and he looked to be barely paying any attention to anything, but I knew better. He had perfect eyesight and a gift for observation, and more importantly, he virtually never missed.

Plus, with the pair of recoil and stability-assisting tech gloves presently tied with string to the long barrel of his rifle, I could park him two miles off the ground on the floor of an idling _Valkyrie_ and he'd _still_ hit anything I asked him to.

"So what's going on, really? They told you much?" He asked me.

"No. The message was annoyingly vague. 'Go here, sort out the problem'." I replied, my voice dry.

"Maybe it's one of those 'you'll know it when you see it' kind of deals." He suggested.

"Yes, perhaps the rebels already blasted Idira into chunks and they want me to stitch it back together again."

"Hey, wouldn't surprise _me_." He said. "You know high command. Always demanding miracles and then shooting people when they don't get 'em."

"I'd feel better if it were Lord Thale giving the orders. It sounds to me that the Lord Commander said 'jump', Thale asked him 'how high', and now I get to be the one leaping into the pit of vipers."

Nito shrugged.

"Well, we'll be jumping right along with you, boss. Figuratively speaking, I mean. I'll be shooting into the pit from a minimum safe distance. Well, Em will probably jump. She does that. A lot. It's a pleasure to watch, really."

I arched an eyebrow.

"Hey, I'm a sniper. I notice things. It's my job, right?" He offered, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

"I need you _intact_, not crying at the foot of Emelia's bed because she broke you in two."

He grinned, all youthful insouciance.

"A boy can dream, right boss?"

"Uh huh. Just don't dream too much. I need my sniper awake, healthy and _paying attention_, you hear?"

He saluted me as I walked away.

"You got it, boss!"

"This is bad, Nathan."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"You need to be careful."

"I know that."

"Then you need to _act_ like it for once in your damn life, boy."

"What do you want me to do? Shoot everyone I meet?"

"It'd be a start."

Alec was unhappy. This was not, in and of itself, a particularly noteworthy event. He was old even by the standards of the Inquisition, and time – or rather, his profession – had not been kind. He needed a cane just to move about these days, but he was by far the most experienced of all of us. Which made him, in some ways, the most dangerous.

And, with the right tools, he could still fight as well as anyone.

We were hidden away in one of the disused parts of the station where Alec had decided to take up permanent residence. It was an odd choice, but time had given Alec a number of odd quirks. I didn't question it much. On the wall was a suit of heavy carapace armour, matt black and unmarked save for a single golden aquila on the chestpiece. It looked too heavy for the old man standing before me; but under the thick plates was an exoskeleton that would hold him upright – and make him stronger than the rest of us, to boot.

It was the next best thing to true power armour. Unfortunately, our one suit of that had a fried reactor courtesy of hostile bolter fire, so it was presently inoperable.

Alec himself was standing by the side of it, leaning heavily on his cane.

"Idira practically _breeds_ rebels. It always has." He said.

"And yet it's too valuable to let anyone else have it."

"Hmph. Burn the whole thing down, build a few mining rigs and be done with it." He muttered irritably, stabbing at the floor with his cane.

"There are seven billion people on Idira. Seven billion souls the Ministorum seems hell-bent on saving." I pointed out. "They won't take kindly to me killing them all."

"Half of them are heretics, boy. They didn't believe in the God-Emperor at all before we invaded, and that hasn't changed because we bombed them from orbit and forced the Protectorate out."

"That doesn't change things much. I doubt it's gotten to open revolt yet. If it had, they'd have called for the Imperial Guard, not the Inquisition. Think they'd relent if I gave them half of Idira?"

"I think you'd be shot for heresy."

"... that's what I was afraid you'd say."

"You can't _reason_ with these people, Nathan. If they won't accept the Emperor's light, then they're a lost cause."

I sighed.

"Well, we'll see what happens when we get there."

* * *

><p>I visited the last – and in some ways, the strangest – member of my combat team near the bottom of the station, where he kept quiet quarters to himself near the training rooms. That was where I found him, wearing only a pair of loose-fitting black training pants, with a sword in his hand, carving elegant patterns in the air. His face was a picture of serene fury as his blade sliced back and forth, going through the rhythms of a dance that only he knew.<p>

I had often thought that while Emelia was a killing machine, Kyriel – my knight – was an _artist_. And he was, truly, a knight – he'd taken all the oaths, sworn all the vows, and lived by them utterly, as far as I could understand.

I had found him on a world far apart from the Imperium; far away from the distant wars that raged across the stars. To his people, space travel was some kind of lunatic's myth, some flighty fever-dream that lived only in the minds of the deluded and the insane. Then the fires of Chaos had come to his world from the heavens, and had set countless legions of emaciated, flayed cultists armed with little more than blunt knives and pitchforks against the knights of their realm.

I had watched plate-armoured horsemen charge into an ocean of bronze-panoplied daemons, and brave men fling themselves at the feet of monsters that almost touched the skies in desperate, futile efforts to defend their homes. In the end, they had lost – and I had not been able to save them. In the end, all I could do was save one knight from the fire. I had taken him with me with the promise of vengeance – the promise that he could take some measure of solace in the slaughter of those who had taken his home from him.

His sword sliced the air, carving at – I knew – imagined daemons and horrors that still lingered in my nightmares. I cannot imagine what haunts his own. I found him knee-deep amongst the dead, the lone survivor of all his brothers. He alone had lived. Having watched him fight, I can say for certain that it was not luck that had saved him.

Some people are born with a singular gift for violence; Emelia is one. Ser Kyriel is another; though he scarcely knows which end of a gun to hold, he is a prodigy with the sword, the spear, and anything else with a sharp edge that kills people.

When he saw me, he slowed immediately – he turned his killing stroke into a soft, gentle arc that ended with it resting at his side, pointed down. He was breathing heavily and covered in sweat, his hair matted and sticking to his forehead. He bowed low to me, the movement practiced and graceful. I nodded in return; he seemed satisfied with that.

"My lord. Is it time?" His voice is flat and almost devoid of emotion. I'm not sure how much he has left in him.

"Yes."

"The Enemy?" I could hear, then, the buried hatred that he laced through that word.

"Not this time."

His only response was a nod. I could see the frustration and anger coursing through him now, close to the surface. He wanted nothing more than to throw himself against the forces of Chaos until he met his end, something I now denied him. Even so, he would do his duty. He had determined that I was his lord now, and that meant he would do ask I asked – fight whoever I commanded him to. Even if it displeased him.

"Who are we fighting?"

"Secessionists." At his confused expression, I continued. "Rebels and heretics looking to escape from Imperial rule."

He nodded.

"I shall pack my things, my lord. I am ready whenever you need me."

* * *

><p><em>The <em>Wayfarer_, _

_Deep Space, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum, _

_942.M41_

I own an unusual amount of property for someone of my relative youth and experience within the Inquisition. I have the Orrery, carefully hidden away. And I have a starship, the _Wayfarer_, a small and lightly-armed freighter that ferries me wherever I need to go. When you have a hidden base of operations in deep space, your own starship is practically a necessity; otherwise the captains of whatever ships you hire to convey you across the stars will know precisely where you can be found – and fear of the Inquisition is never enough to keep such information a secret forever.

So we're there now, on route to Idira, and whatever that world holds in store for us.

I am in the medical bay, looking down upon the sleeping Ellana. Her red hair is a tangled sheet covering most of her face. She looks peaceful, dreaming whatever psykers dream when adrift in the sea of the warp. She is sedated again; I hate to do this to her, but unfortunately it is necessary – for her own safety, and that of us all. Once we arrive on Idira, her training will begin, while we investigate whatever troubles assail that embattled planet.

So many variables. I check her vitals again; she's stable. A healthy twelve year old girl who I've brought into a world of violence and fear. I tell myself that it's better than the alternative; it's true, though in some ways that is small comfort. That her choices are either burning up in the flames of the Golden Throne or venturing forth into the unknown with me – risking utter damnation – seems terribly unjust to me. But the universe is not a just place. It's no place for little girls, but I have brought her here regardless. Because her powers will be of use to me – because her power can help _save humanity._

If such a thing is even possible.


	4. Idira

_The _Wayfarer_, _

_Idiran Orbit, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

Idira.

We were at the edge of Imperial space. Balanced precariously atop a tiny point at the tip of the knife-shaped wedge of space the Imperium had carved out of the Protectorate of Nyria nearly three centuries ago. A war that had cost both sides hundreds of warships and uncounted lives.

A war that had quite firmly established the Land of the Heralds – a Chaos domain of sorcery and madness – as the dominant power in the sector. The grim spectre of their oversized fleet had lurked over Auriga ever since; a bellicose monster that had staged a dozen incursions into Imperial space and had been met largely unopposed.

Many of us in the Inquisition believed that these attacks had been little more than a prelude to a much larger undertaking; just a hesitant giant flexing its muscles, testing the strength of its rivals and finding us wanting. Now the new Lord Commander was rallying a new crusade, hoping to drive a lance into the monster's side for good; seeking to end the threat with a single glorious war that would firmly cement his legacy in the sector and the wider Imperium for centuries to come.

I had met the man once, in passing; the newly minted Lord Commander Ihrasus, all youthful charm and golden armour, with the backing of one of the most powerful noble houses in the Imperium, not to mention the support of the Cult Mechanicus, who seemed to view _any_ aggression in the Aurigan sector on our part as a step in the right direction.

_He's far too young_, I had thought; he had earned his position by virtue of his house's influence and power, coupled with the political momentum of a few minor victories won against Herald raiding forces along the border. He'd won every battle he'd fought, and with the arrogance of the young believed himself invincible – and then he had ascended to the lofty position of Lord Commander, which had done nothing to dispel the illusion. It had been an extremely uncommon elevation for someone of his youth, and by my estimate, not a wise one.

I tightened my grip on the railing and leaned forward to survey the lower level of the command bridge of the _Wayfarer_. Typical of many Imperial vessels these days, the command crew worked on an eclectic mix of cogitator systems, some ancient and venerable, others fresh from some distant forge world. A dozen or more hololithic displays bathed the room in a mixed haze of blue and amber light as they displayed visual representations of the ship's systems.

I focused my attention upon the central display, a giant hololithic projector mounted upon a raised platform emblazoned with the Imperial aquila. It was presently displaying a dazzling cobalt image of the Idiran system; three planets orbiting a main sequence star, of which only one was inhabited. Visible on the display were four ships, including us.

A pair of _Cobra_-class destroyers – the _Echo of Wrath_ and the _Harbinger_ – lurked at the edge of the system, prowling for intruders, while a _Dauntless_-class light cruiser - the _Angel of Fury – _held a high orbit over Idira, on the other side of the planet from us. I suspected we'd be hearing from them soon.

I turned from the display to regard my captain; he was presently sitting in his command chair, twirling a slender goblet in his right hand. He was wearing a pair of subdued Inquisitorial robes and a nervous expression. Elias Raith had been in my service for many years now, and was prone to drinking when he was expecting trouble. I allowed it for the simple reason that he was actually _more_ effective as a commander with a glass of wine in him than without.

"Any sign of the enemy?" I asked, my voice low.

He looked over at me, a little too sharply. A few drops of wine sloshed over the edge of his goblet onto the grating below. He looked down for a moment, brushing his long hair from his face.

"No, my lord."

I glanced back at the display, and the three other ships presently represented by shining aquilae.

"Ah." I said knowingly. The sight of so many Imperial ships – more importantly, so many Imperial ships that utterly dwarfed us in terms of firepower – was making him nervous, then. He'd been a pirate before he had entered my service, and old habits, it seemed, died hard.

I mused.

"Last sight of them?"

There was a pause as he entered a few commands on his chair's attached cogitator system. There was a whir as one of the displays cycled around to sit before him and shimmered to life after a few staccato flickers of argent light. His face glowed bright as he read through the records.

"Two days ago, Inquisitor. Nyrian cruiser entered the system on the outskirts and exchanged fire with the _Harbinger_ before transitioning back to the Immaterium."

"Hmm. Thoughts?"

"They're waiting for something is my guess. For the fleet to move on, maybe."

It made sense; the _Angel _was scheduled to depart in less than a week to join the crusade fleet mustering elsewhere. After that, only the _Harbinger_ and the _Wrath_ would be left to secure the system. Along with us, of course – but the _Wayfarer_ wasn't outfitted for heavy combat.

"How does the fleet here match up to that cruiser?"

"My lord?"

"Without the _Angel_, I mean."

Raith paused, considering.

"Not well." He said at last. "Nyrian ships run faster than ours, and usually better armed. Much less armour, but those destroyers wouldn't catch a Protectorate cruiser for that to matter. We've got a scattering of defence satellites in Idiran orbit, but that won't do much against a mobile attack force if they made for hit and run."

"Or if they brought in more ships." I added grimly.

"Or that." Raith agreed.

"How far away are the nearest reinforcements?"

"About a day away, at the moment. After the crusade fleet leaves, double that."

I sighed in frustration.

"He's spread us too damn thin." I said. At Raith's silence, I continued. "He's drawn ships in from all across the sector for this invasion, not just the Aurigan sub, and it's left a lot of worlds with only a patchwork of defences. We're lucky to have the _Wrath_ and the _Harbinger_ defending Idira at all. All the Protectorate has to do is waltz in here with a few ships and..."

Raith frowned. He'd known things were bad, of course, but I don't think anyone had stood there and spelled it out in front of him yet.

"Then how'd he do it? Where's the support coming from if this is such a bad move?"

I shrugged.

"The Ministorum's been agitating for an invasion for years. They've been saying that the mere existence of a domain like the Heralds' in such proximity to Imperial space is blasphemy that can't be tolerated, and they _strongly suggest _that anyone who argues against invasion has heretical tendencies."

"And the Mechanicus?"

"They want the Protectorate gone. Always have. My bet is that Ihrasus promised them that the Nyrians would be next so long as they backed him this time. To the Mechanicus, the Nyrians are just as bad as the Heralds."

"Are the rumours true, then?"

I waved a hand dismissively.

"I doubt it. We can't be _sure_, of course, and neither can the Mechanicus, which is why people can get away with spreading tales of it at all. But AI? A _true_ abominable intelligence?" I shook my head. "Not a chance. A few sophisticated machine spirits and incidences of cogitator technology we can't replicate doesn't mean the Nyrians have AI. If there was any real proof we'd have heard about it long before now."

_Not to mention there's been no sign of true artificial intelligence for thousands of years. Not since before the Great Crusade._

Distracting me from my thoughts, a young and harried-looking scribe approached the dais where Raith and I were watching over the bridge.

"My lords!"

"Yes?" Raith answered, his manner suddenly shifting from deferential to imperious as he turned from me to his subordinate. I didn't look over; he was the captain, I was the Inquisitor. Matters of the ship were his domain, even if he was my servant.

"The captain of the _Angel of Fury_ is insisting upon a private audience with the Throne agent aboard the _Wayfarer_."

"Is he, now?" I replied, my voice laced with cold amusement.

"So they know I'm here, then, and don't mind broadcasting it across the system. It's good to know the kind of military minds we're dealing with here."

Raith raised his eyebrow at me and made to speak, but I waved a hand to cut him off.

_If they know, then they know. Nothing to be done about it now._ I prefer to move in secret where possible, but the Lord Commander and his people evidently seem inclined to make my life as difficult as they can.

If they want the Inquisitor, then I shall give them the Inquisitor. I turned to Raith.

"Answer their hails. Tell them that we'll speak to them, but here and now." I gave a feral smile. "In fact, throw them up on the viewscreen; if they will not do me the courtesy of keeping my arrival a secret, then we shall not oblige them with private audiences of any kind."

He nodded, turned away from me to operate his command chair. I raised myself up from my relaxed position leaning against the rails, fixed my Inquisitorial rosette to my chest and schooled my features into a mask of cold arrogance. It is easy to look at me and assume I am an unproven boy; by Inquisitorial standards, this is even true.

But even as a junior inquisitor, I have seen horrors that would reduce most men to gibbering wrecks. Such is the sacrifice we make as agents of the Throne. When the image of the _Angel's_ captain came into view – a lantern-jawed, hard-nosed naval commander – I stared directly at him with an expression of naked contempt.

The truth was, I was _angry_. I had been sent here with little to no explanation, at the behest of a military commander who technically did not have the authority to order me anywhere. Political realities of the situation be damned. I will not stand idly by while fools make poor choices and damn us all.

"Captain, I-"

"_Inquisitor_." I cut him off, my voice cold and sharp. I paused just long enough for him to think that he could continue talking, then interrupted him a second time.

"_Inquisitor_ Nathaniel Aymeric. Ordo Hereticus." I stressed the last two words. Ordo Hereticus. Witch Hunter. Executioner of traitors, mutants and heretics all. We are the most feared of all the Ordos for one simple reason – when we come, we have come for _you. _We don't hunt that which dwells Beyond, or in the depths of space. We slay the monster that stirs within the hearts of Man - nobody is above suspicion. None escape our scrutiny.

"Y-yes." He stuttered in his response. "The Lord Commander informed us of your assignment."

"He should not have done so." I said flatly. "My arrival should not have been disclosed to you, nor anyone else, save at my discretion."

"The Lord Commander felt-" he blustered.

"What he felt is of no consequence. Inquisitorial matters are for the Inquisition. The operational parameters of Inquisitorial undertakings are not for the High Command to determine. Is this clear?"

He steeled himself and met my eyes with barely concealed frustration and anger; evidently he was not used to being spoken to in this manner. Most naval captains were not, in my experience. Equally evident was that he fully intended to report my conduct to the Lord Commander at his earliest possible convenience in the hopes of securing some kind of petty revenge. Let him do that; soon the Lord Commander will be light years away fighting for his life, and in no position to reprimand me for anything.

"Yes, my lord Inquisitor."

"Good." I said. "As you no doubt are aware, the nature of my mission on Idira is highly sensitive. Should news of my arrival find its way to the wrong people, then it will all be for nought."

I could see the cogs turning in his mind. It probably occurred to him to do that simply to spite me, though only as an errant thought. No Imperial captain would seriously consider directly violating the express wishes of an Inquisitor acting in the course of his duties, whether they enjoyed the Lord Commander's favour or not. He would lose his head over it; or, more likely, he'd die by fire, screaming.

"I trust that the members of your crew who know of my presence here can be trusted?" It was not really a question; he would answer in the affirmative regardless of whether or not it was true, and we both knew it.

"Of course, my lord Inquisitor." He ground out in response.

"The consequences should that turn out not to be the case would be quite severe, I'm afraid. For them and for you both."

I did not, particularly, need to say that. But I felt like driving the point home.

"Yes, my lord. I understand."

"I am sure that you do."

I made a slashing motion, and Raith cut the transmission. I turned to him.

"Get in contact with whoever's in charge on the ground; have him relay detailed reports of the rebels' activities on Idira. For that matter, I want a full report on all Imperial military operations on-world, regardless of how classified they are."

Raith nodded.

"If I might ask, my lord...?" He ventured. I nodded slightly, signalling my assent.

"What are you looking for?"

"Something. Anything out of the ordinary. I want to know what's so important that an agent of the Ordos is suddenly necessary to deal with simple matters of sedition. If there's something here that the Lord Commander or his new friends don't want uncovered, then I intend to uncover it."

Raith grinned. Despite his new allegiances, he still had that rebellious streak in him.

"Aye, my lord."

"Thank you. Notify me when it's done."

* * *

><p>"So, what's the verdict?" Emelia asked me. She was reclining upon a couch in one of the briefing rooms, and had her feet up on a table that was half-covered by stacks of paper and dataslates containing summaries of the reports I'd asked for. More detailed accounts would follow later, I had been assured.<p>

"Nothing useful yet." I replied. "Apparently the secessionists have mostly been restricting themselves to isolated attacks against Imperial interests."

Despite that, it was good to finally have some concrete accounts and figures; before I had arrived here, the nature of my mission had been woefully unclear. 'Go to Idira, deal with the uprising.' I had known nothing about the nature or extent of said uprising. Now I did.

"Makes sense." Emelia mused. "If they don't have the firepower to fight us head on, they work on destabilising the existing power structure as much as possible until they do." She brushed a lock of blonde hair away from her face. "Of course, there's the question of how much support they're receiving from elsewhere."

"The Protectorate." I murmured.

"Yeah." She said. "Are they coordinating? How much? Is it just the Idiran populace, or do they have elements of the Nyrian military backing them up?" She wondered aloud.

"Not sure yet." I replied. "But I'd guess the latter." I added. "Apparently they got one of the Protectorate combat walkers working and ran it up the streets of Kerrida."

"The capital? Shit." Emelia chuckled. "Okay, sorry, not funny." She added, upon seeing my reproachful look. "I'd always wanted to try running one of those things, though."

"Maybe you'll get your chance before this is all over."

"Mm." She replied. "So, what are you thinking?"

I looked at her.

"I know that face, Inquisitor." She said, her voice knowing. "You're suspicious."

I folded the dataslate shut and placed it on the table, then sat forward.

"I am. When we head down to the planet, I want you to break off. Find somewhere isolated, somewhere we can lay low if things go bad."

Emelia frowned.

"You don't think it'll be safe in the Imperial quarter?"

"Do _you_?" I countered.

All across the Imperium, there's a divide between territory and locations specifically controlled by the Adeptus themselves, and that controlled by subservient or vassal territories.

Any given world will have a governor appointed by the Imperium to rule as, effectively, the representative of the Administratum and the Adeptus on that planet – beyond that, the Imperium does not specifically claim territory so much as general and overall ownership of worlds and domains.

Many worlds pay tithes of various kinds – in soldiers, materials or the like – and so long as these obligations are met, they are largely left to their own devices with little oversight. Similarly, Arbites fortress-precincts are regarded as more or less sovereign territory, and operate independently of both local law enforcement and executive and legislative branches of the planetary government, who in turn are free to more or less legislate as they please so long as doing so does not violate Imperial dictates.

On Idira – and specifically in the capital, Kerrida – this manifests as the Imperium sequestering off a section of the city for its own interests, but little else. The Arbites have a small fortress established there, and there are a cluster of structures owned and operated by the Administratum for its own use. The whole region is walled off and defended rather heavily, but even so – in the event of all-out revolt, it is the first place that will burn.

The Imperial governor maintains control through a combination of the local police force and elements of the Imperial Guard assigned to his command; it is not a stable situation, and I doubt it can last.

"For now, it'll stand. But how long will that be the case if the Idirans revolt? More to the point, what if the Protectorate attacks while the crusade fleet is absent and we're left to fend for ourselves? We need a place to fall back to. Somewhere we can hide if everything goes south, where nobody can find us."

"You won't stand and fight?" Emelia asked, a thread of surprise in her voice.

"I'll fight for as long as it looks like we have a chance of winning." I said. "But I won't be anyone's martyr."

She was quiet at that.

"A man who has nothing can still offer his life." I said softly. "But as long as you have your life, that's not _nothing_. Better to live to fight for the Emperor another day than to throw your life away just to make a statement."

"You're a very unusual inquisitor, Inquisitor." She said at last, as I looked back down at my dataslate.

"I suppose." I said, not quite sure how to respond to that.

"Most wouldn't be sitting here talking with me like you are now." She continued.

"Yes, they'd be brooding by themselves in some distant chamber somewhere." I shrugged. "I've never been very good at being frightening and aloof."

"No?" She challenged. "I heard you terrified that poor naval captain earlier."

"True enough." I chuckled; she shook her head in wry amusement.

"I'll tell you about it sometime." I said after a moment.

"Hm?" She craned her head to look at me, curious.

"Why I'm... this way, I suppose." I gestured vaguely with my hand, indicating the informal setting and my choice of less-than-regal attire. She perked up and flashed me a predatory grin.

"Oh? So there is some great mystery to it, then?"

"Not quite, I'm afraid."

Her smile only widened.

"If you say so. I'll look forward to it, boss."

We were both quiet for some time after that, passing the time by in companionable silence as we pored over various reports and the like from Guard sergeants, accounts from civilian witnesses to rebel attacks, statements of Imperial force dispositions and strength... everything, in short, that we had on the Idiran situation.

"Ha! Paydirt!" Emelia exclaimed, raising her hand in triumph.

"What'd you find?"

"Here. Look at this." She tossed me the dataslate.

I frowned as I read.

"An order by a 'Magos Aurius' for all Imperial Guard units to vacate the site of a skirmish between Skitarii elements deployed on Idira and rebel forces."

It didn't look like much, but... Skitarii deployed directly in an offensive capacity? Senior Mechanicus issuing direct commands to Guard units?

"You were right. Your friend the Lord Commander _is_ up to something."

"Hmm. Or his position is precarious enough that he's willing to give a lot of ground to the Machine Cult when they want it given."

"Or that." She agreed. "So... he wants you here to deal with the revolution so that whatever his Mechanicus friends are up to doesn't get torn to shreds when the proverbial shit hits the fan?"

"That sounds about right."

Emelia considered this for a moment.

"Why you, though?" She asked at last.

"As opposed to someone more firmly in his camp, you mean?"

"Exactly. Why someone who's been vocally opposed to his invasion plans since the beginning? He wants one less naysayer with the crusade fleet? Why not just send a yes-man who won't bother asking questions?"

I'd thought about that myself, and had no good explanations.

"I don't know; I doubt my objections mean much to the Lord Commander. It's possible that he's young and petty enough to not want me around just because I don't agree with him, but I doubt I'd be assigned anywhere near him even if I _were_ with the fleet."

"And he _did_ ask for you personally?"

I'd reviewed the message Lina had relayed to me before; I had indeed been requested by name, as it turned out.

I had a reasonably good track record as Inquisitors went, and my largely successful operational history was no particular secret – at least amongst those who move in the more rarified circles of Imperial intelligence and high command, but I was not particularly exceptional in that regard – so why ask for me? I had certainly made my share of mistakes; every Inquisitor has at least a few botched operations or outright defeats in his career, and I was no exception.

The question remained, but unfortunately it didn't seem that answers were buried in this collection of dataslates. I stood and stretched.

"I'm going to check in with Alec and our new psyker. Let me know if you find anything else."

"Will do, boss."

* * *

><p>There is a lake and a waterfall somewhere near the heart of the ship; a tiny island of serenity away from the chaos and metal that is life aboard a space-faring vessel. I do not know why it was built, or by who, but upon learning of it, I promptly decreed that it should be maintained for my personal use.<p>

It seems a ludicrous extravagance – but the _Wayfarer_ had never been a military vessel, and had always been owned by some wealthy privateer or merchant or the like in the many years before it had become mine. Extravagances were to be expected.

Ellana sat under the waterfall, untouched by the falling water; it curved gently away from her, as if guided by an invisible hand. From where I stood, I could see stray drops and trickles of water drift away from the lake into the air, cast free of gravity's lure by some errant caprice of the warp.

It was a curious thing, watching a psyker at peace simply to _be_, free to do as she wished, cast out her will into the empty corridors of the ship and see what waited there. I could feel a low static all around me, the faint and ever-present thread of Ellana's will twining itself with the very air.

"It's dangerous leaving her free like this." Alec said, his voice low.

"I know."

"The Telepathica's training-" He began again.

"If I wanted her trained according to their specifications, I would have ordered _them_ to train her."

"You're not training her at all." Alec pointed out.

"I wouldn't know how. Have we heard any word from Theo?"

"He should be arriving soon. Are you sure it wouldn't be wiser to-"

"What wisdom would the Telepathica have to offer, Alec? As far as I'm aware, their advice with regards to training beta-plus psykers is 'don't'."

Alec had not stopped challenging me about Ellana simply because my mind had been made up; he felt certain that she was going to bring doom down upon us all. I could not blame him for feeling this way, but at times he needed to be reminded which one of us was the Inquisitor – even if he had technically served the Inquisition itself for longer than I had.

I had 'inherited' him - for want of a better word - from my former master, the old Inquisitor Sydon. Upon my ascension to full Inquisitor, Sydon had sent Alec with me to provide both advice and guidance, and (he had hoped) to temper my more reckless impulses.

"What would you have me do, Alec? Send her back to the Telepathica? Shoot her in the head here and now?" I rounded on him. "We've had this discussion before. My decision hasn't changed."

Alec leaned slowly on his side, putting more of his weight on his cane. He seemed to shrink back in the face of my anger.

"Throne's sake, Alec, _look_ at her." I gestured to the girl under the waterfall. "She's not summoning daemons or losing her mind. I'm not saying it won't be dangerous to train her, I'm saying it's worth attempting _despite_ the risks."

I watched a trail of water as it swirled into a spiral shape, twisting and turning in the air as it rose, glistening and shimmering, from the lake. A thousand tiny points of refracted light floating in the air. It was beautiful to watch.

"Look." I pointed. "_This_ is what we don't understand. What they do, it's always been more _magic_ than science. They

wish it, and it happens. She can make that water dance without even trying. Even long after she's stopped paying attention, it's still _her will_ rather than gravity that decides where the water goes."

"Very poetic." Alec said dryly. I looked sharply at him.

"My point is that the more we try to avert our eyes, the more blind we become. A psyker can see what we can't, know things we never could. We need that."

"You would look to the warp for wisdom, then?" Alec's voice held a tone of warning.

"We already do." I pointed out. "We use telepaths and diviners to gain knowledge all the time. This is just a step further."

"And how many steps is too many?" Alec asked quietly.

"I don't know. What I do know is that the steps we've taken so far aren't enough. What other options do we have?"

"We can have faith."

"I can. I do. That's why I'm doing this."

I took a step forward. Alec looked at me in alarm.

"Trust me, old friend. I'm going to talk to her."

I headed towards the lake, treading carefully over the rocks as I made my way around its perimeter. I could see the flow of water shift subtly, waves softly turning to ripple out towards me. Ellana was watching me. A faint shiver ran through my bones; for a moment I felt small, vulnerable. Like someone caught in the gaze of a predator far larger and more frightening than himself. The water twitched slightly. Then a fiercer wave than usual crashed against the rocks by my feet.

_She can feel your fear, even if she can't read your thoughts yet. Control your mind. _

I forced myself to smile, and turned inwards to that reckless, half mad part of me that sneered at danger and feared nothing. That part of me that still felt as if nothing could harm me, even if my scars begged to differ.

With a madman's grin, I leapt from the rocks into the waist-deep water with a loud splash, laughing and relishing the sudden ice-cold shock of the water to my system. I broke into that slow-motion half-jog that people manage when their legs are submerged and raced under the waterfall into the tiny cave that held Ellana.

She wore a half-smile and a look of surprise. I had the sudden impression that people rarely approached her willingly, and reluctantly even then. The black robes she'd been given lent her a foreboding air, even if she was still a child. Her red hair was stuck to the back of her black robes, drenched by the water, but she didn't seem even slightly affected by the cold.

_Perhaps she isn't; perhaps when they're that powerful they're a foot in the warp, a foot in our world, all the time. _

She looked at me quizzically.

"We've come to a dangerous place, haven't we?" She asked me.

"How do you know?"

"I can feel it. The fear, it's like..." She struggled to think of the right word. "Like _thorns_ in my mind."

"How much can you sense? The ship?" I was genuinely curious, now, to see how far her telepathic senses extended.

She nodded silently, a hint of pride shining through.

"Can you feel Idira? The world beneath us?"

"No." She said, after a moment's hesitation. But I saw something – a brief flash of panic cross her features before she spoke. _She's lying_, I realised. A brief chill ran through me at the realisation. Had I been wrong to trust her?

Ellana's eyes jerked upwards to meet mine, suddenly frightened.

"Ellana." I said carefully. "I haven't lied to you. I'd like to think you'd extend me the same courtesy."

She nodded, not taking her eyes off mine, but she seemed almost ready to get up and bolt. The water gathered about my waist felt suddenly much colder, almost biting.

_Is that me, or is that her? _

"What is it you're afraid of?" I asked quietly. She said nothing. I noticed her clutch tightly at her robes, her tiny hands twisting the fabric. "Is there something on Idira?"

"No. But there was. There could be again." She said, her voice not oddly clear and resonant in the enclosed space of the cave.

A spike of fear that had nothing to do with Ellana or her powers shot through me at that. Something about the unequivocal way she said "there could be again" left little doubt as to what she had meant. I didn't particularly want to ask her, but I had no choice. I had to know.

"Can you show me?"

"What?"

"I need you to focus on the memory. Only the memory. Then I need you to show me, as best you can."

She swallowed, clearly scared. One of Sydon's old lessons came to mind.

_What we do is cruel but it must be done. You must not hesitate. You must never hesitate. _

"I need to know." I said, as softly as I could. She nodded, her expression trusting but fearful. She unclenched her right fist from her robes and held her hand out to me. I took it. Her fingers were tiny and cold in mine.

I was not prepared.

One moment I was standing there in the cave with Ellana, waist-deep in ice cold water.

_A lance of agony stabbed into me, burying itself in my chest. _

_I felt my ribs crack and burn, suddenly white-hot. My body shook violently, thrashing like a dying animal in the water. I looked down in desperation and saw the clear blue of the water beneath me stained crimson with my blood. My hands were alabaster white but bloody. They clutched at my robes. _

_A rolling tide of mutilated flesh advanced towards me. _

_A thousand wailing mouths screeched cries of agony and whispered their death rattles in my ear. _

_I tried to reach out but felt only pallid flesh that yielded beneath my grasp, felt blood and melted flesh slough and weep through my fingers. I felt a dozen bodies press in all around me, naked or garbed in rags, covered in weeping sores and moaning in a demented mix of pleasure and agony. _

_Then I looked up and saw it; the monster that sat, bloated, atop an endless pile of the dead and the dying. Its distended flesh sagged from its body and enveloped a hundred dying men, swaddling them in its filth. I saw people moving beneath the surface of its skin, dead things that lived on inside it. Its mouth was a gaping maw filled with rotting teeth permanently stretched open as it uttered a constant, gagging laughter. It looked straight at me with pitch-black eyes with infinite depths. I felt like an ant forced to look upon the universe. _

_Its lolling tongue wagged obscenely back and forth even as it was pierced by a fanged tooth that wept black pus. I think it laughed at me as one of the dead things around me smothered my face with a rotting gut covered in maggot-infested sores. I vomited blood and black filth. Somewhere in the distance, that thing was still laughing its horrible laughter._

* * *

><p>I woke up in the ship's infirmary. I started shaking, every instinct in me screaming to <em>run<em>, to _hide_, to bury myself in the ground and never see the light again. Almost instantly, a familiar face appeared at my side and tightened the restraints that bound my hands so I could not move.

Ser Kyriel looked down at me, his handsome face grim and devoid of humour.

"I am told you have two broken ribs. You should not move."

"What happened?" I croaked. I recoiled at the sound of my own voice. It came out like a madman's rasp.

"You touched the mind of the Enemy. I... do not think your psyker intended it." He said finally.

I strained, still shaking. I tried to sit up. Failed. I craned my head to look up at Kyriel as he sat back down by my side. I noticed that his sword was propped up against his chair, resting in its golden sheath. His amulet, a golden sun, hung from its hilt. He had been praying for me.

"Thank you." I said. He looked confused. I nodded in the direction of his sword as best I could.

"The Lord of Sunlight has spared you today." Kyriel said. "We are fortunate."

The belief of the sun as Emperor was not an uncommon belief as variants on the Imperial Cult went, but it was still strange to hear it spoken aloud. Strange, but still comforting. I nodded by way of response. I was too weak to say much more. My throat felt raw and painful.

"Ellana? Is she...?"

"She fared better than you. I believe you took the worst of it."

"Good." I rasped. Kyriel nodded in agreement.

"It is." He agreed. "She is not as strong as you."

_And look what happened to me. _

I felt helpless; whatever that thing was, just a _brush_ with it had been enough to practically cripple me. How could I fight something like that? My body felt practically hollow, as if I hadn't eaten in days. My muscles felt weak, barely able to move. That thing had practically crushed me with the equivalent of a stray thought. A memory. I didn't even know if it had even really been _aware_ of me. How tiny I must seem to such a thing.

"How long have I been out?" I finally thought to ask.

"Not long." Kyriel replied. "A day at most."

_A day. I've been unconscious for a whole day. _

I trembled involuntarily.

"Let me up." I said. Kyriel hesitated.

"I'll be fine." I lied. "Untie me."

He did so. I stood, and almost instantly collapsed. Kyriel caught me with no effort at all and lowered me back down to sit on the bed. His expression – typically blank – was almost reproachful.

"I need something to eat." I said. Then, as an afterthought, I added: "And I need to kill something."

Kyriel nodded. I knew he could sympathise with the latter impulse.

Just as I was about to try to stand up again, the door to the infirmary burst open and Alina entered, a harried expression on her face.

"Nathan! You're awake." She said, relieved. "The others sent me to wake you if you hadn't already-"

"What's going on?" I cut in, suddenly impatient. I felt _thin_, my mind barely skating on the nearer side of sanity, my body about to give out on me.

She took a breath.

"We've just received word from the surface; the rebels have staged a dozen attacks in central Kerrida, taken hostages... stormed a number of important government buildings."

I stood up, grasping Kyriel's shoulder as a lever to drag myself to my feet.

"Have the team assemble by the shuttle in an hour." I said.

"What? You can't seriously-"

"I am. Assemble the team. We're going in."


	5. Into the Spire

Author's Note: Thanks for the feedback, guys! I appreciate every word.

Haven't written any action in a while; hopefully it's up to standard. At any rate; onwards!

* * *

><p><em>Kerrida, Idira<em>

_Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

Kerrida was a tangled maze of light beneath us; her streets and paths were finely spun threads of gold that fanned out, bright and beautiful, across the Idiran countryside before finally vanishing into the lush forests that surrounded the city. For miles outside the outskirts, the leaves and trees seemed to radiate with a faint amber glow.

In the city centre, the lines converged and twined in a dozen blocks of towering skyscrapers of glass and steel that soared upwards to touch the clouds. In the night they glittered black and gold, reflecting the thousands of tiny candles and sparks of the city below.

Before the conquest, they had been privately owned by independent industries. Now they were under the control of the Administratum. There were no towering monuments to the God-Emperor here; no testaments to the majesty of the Imperium. Only the lingering memories and ghosts of the world this had once been, and of its former owners.

It was my first sight of the city. I felt like an intruder, stepping out of the Imperium, into somewhere new and unfamiliar. As we got closer I could still see the jagged scars that had been rent into some of the buildings – where we had torn down the symbols and names of the skyscrapers' former owners. The wounds were still visible.

We had conquered Idira two hundred years ago. Since then, there have been three separate rebellions. The last had ended when Inquisitor Lord Thale burned half of Valice – once the Idirans' greatest city, eclipsing even the capital – to the ground. Two hundred years, and I still felt as if I was flying into hostile territory.

Perhaps I was.

Our assault shuttle – a relatively new _Absolution_-class attack craft, designed specifically for this kind of work – pulled into a holding pattern above the tallest collection of spires. I maintained my vigil at one of the observation ports at the side of the ship. From here I could just about make out the fires burning at the feet of the buildings where the revolutionaries had fought their way inside.

We didn't know much. They had scattered the local Guard and Arbites units stationed to defend the premises, and then either made their way inside or vanished into the night. They had hostages. By now, they had probably erected some crude defences inside the structures themselves. I had given orders for the local elements of Imperial Guard to secure and blockade the surrounding area. Keep the rebels and heretics inside. Wait for my team. We would enter and meet the enemy on our own terms.

I had Alec, Nito, Emelia and Kyriel with me. All of us were adorned in black carapace armour bereft of markings save for a single, darkened sigil of our order on the breastplate. We were the faceless killers of the Inquisition. The wrathful fist of the Emperor.

"What's the play, boss?" Emelia asked. It was more for the others' benefit than her own; she and I had fought together more times than I could count. Kyriel and Nito had not been in my service nearly as long.

I looked up into her faceless, black visor.

"Drop in through the fiftieth floor. Engage the enemy. I intend to find out why the rebels would risk an open assault like this. As far as we've been told, there's nothing that makes these buildings valuable strategic targets for the revolution."

I looked around at the others.

"We save the hostages if we can. First priority, however, is to find out what the enemy is doing here. To that end, we need to find and incapacitate one of their leaders – anyone in a position to know something. Emelia has the tools to get that done; cover her, grab the target once he's down."

Emelia hefted a modified needle rifle; in place of the lethal toxins the weapon would normally deliver, it had been outfitted with a healthy dose of incapacitating poison. Enough to keep a grown man down for hours. More than enough time.

"Any questions?"

"What kind of resistance should we expect in there?" Nito. Usually he would be providing assistance from the shuttle, but I'd heard tales of Protectorate stealth equipment that would make snipers virtually useless. So we were bringing him in with a slightly smaller precision rifle to provide support on the operation from inside the building.

"Unknown. Reports from the ground were sketchy at best. They blew through the sentries and rushed inside before anyone could get a good look at them. The few teams the Guard sent in after them didn't make it further than the lobby."

I looked around at everyone. Four expressionless masks stared back at me.

"Now, you've all heard the stories."

Legions of augmented soldiers, fearless, immune to pain, and filled up from head to toe with lethal ordnance to rival the most elite divisions of Skitarii. Swarms of minute attack drones that could shred a man in seconds. Other techno-blasphemies whose mere existence profaned the Machine God and incensed the Mechanicus.

"I don't know how much truth there is to them. It's been two centuries since we fought the Protectorate in open war, and there's no guarantee that any of their people are even down there. Until we know otherwise, though, assume it's Nyrian military – we've always suspected that elements of their forces have remained in hiding on Idira."

"Be prepared for _anything_. Confirm any and all kills. If a target's augmented in any way, destroy the head to be sure. I've heard stories of dead men reanimated by cerebral implants to keep on fighting."

The shuttle started to circle in, taking us down below. We all prepared our grav chutes; one quick drop and then we'd be in the thick of it. The shuttle's rear door opened to the night air and the howling wind. I could see the top of the Spire – our target – about two hundred feet below us.

I activated my suit's onboard vox system.

"Watch your backs in there. Watch each other's backs. Fight well. And may the Emperor watch over us all."

* * *

><p>Two of my ribs were broken and I was still weak, but when I leapt out of that shuttle into the open night, all of that vanished in an instant.<p>

My grav chute flared to life in a brilliant eruption of emerald flame to slow my descent, and my carapace suit's sonic dampeners turned on to silence the wind. I was soaring on wings of fire, for a brief blissful moment lost to the world.

Then I was descending towards the Spire, a tiny black blur against the dark grey clouds of the Idiran sky.

We came through the window on the fiftieth floor, swooping into a dive and then coming in sideways in a shower of broken glass. Black-armoured figures rose, tiny shards of glass falling from their shoulders as they came up from crouching positions, guns raised, sweeping through the room.

In the middle of the room was a stone fountain; a deep bowl that rose in the centre to a dais that had once been the resting place of a statue. Only a pair of stone boots were left, weathered and worn. The rest of it had been smashed and scattered across the room, leaving only fragments. The rest of the room was just... chairs, carpets. A waiting room of some kind, at a guess. There was a machine with a glass front that seemed to contain snacks that had been bashed half to pieces and left leaning against the wall. A few errant cables trailed around from the back and snaked across the floor, but lead nowhere.

Some of the chairs had been smashed, and the carpet was frayed and mangled, having been torn up in several places. There was no one around; we found ourselves in silence.

"According to our intel, there should be a control room a few floors down. That's our first stop. We make it there, we can find out where the enemy is, hopefully discover what they're up to."

We moved.

It was eerie; dark figures moving through darkened rooms, occasionally passing through spots of light that caused amber flares to glint off the reflective surface of our armour.

We passed through the upper levels, which mostly held walled-off offices with glass walls, all crisp, modern lines and corporate efficiency. We could see the places where the Administratum had moved in; golden and bronze aquilae adorned some of the larger sections of walls. Messages and devotions to the Emperor, extolling the twin glories of devoted service and faith.

As we descended the offices gave way to tiny, enclosed spaces that had once been equipped with private cogitator systems – these had largely been torn out and destroyed when the Mechanicus had moved through the building to cleanse it of unsanctioned technologies – and little else. People had been expected to crawl into these tiny spaces and occupy themselves from dawn until dusk, busying themselves in tiny fragments of data and minute questions of finance and operating practice.

The skyscraper had been left abandoned during the war; after it was all over, the Administratum had moved in, and the tedious work of collating and analysing data had begun again.

I shivered. I knew rationally that this was all vital work, necessary to the continuation of the Imperium – to any state. But the thought of living and dying in such a place repulsed me on a fundamental level.

We live often short, brutal lives – sharply ended, filled with pain. But I looked once more at the tiny cubicles where the Administratum workers lived and knew that if offered the choice, I would take this life every time.

We kept moving, through this odd amalgam of old and new, Idiran and Imperial. We took a stairwell and moved down four levels, still without meeting the enemy – or finding any sign of what they might have been after.

I opened the door at the base of the stairs, glancing out, pistol raised. Before me was a massive expanse of desks and cubicles separated only by thin panels of glass or just a half-metre or so of open space. They were shoved tightly together, with precious little room to move about, except for a narrow walkway that went around the room itself, by the windows that opened out into the Idiran sky. Nito moved up behind me.

"Perfect spot for an ambush, boss." His voice crackled over the in-suit vox.

"Yeah." I agreed. "Keep your eyes open."

He nodded and stepped back to allow Emelia to move in first. She raised her autorifle and took point without hesitation. Of all of us, she had the sharpest eyes – and she was the best shot.

We crept into the room, moving gingerly between the cramped spaces between the desks and the support beams that were placed throughout the room. Lots of cover, but little room to move about – I knew neither Emelia nor Kyriel would have any issues, but it would slow down the rest of us.

We'd just cleared the first few rows of desks and gotten clear into the room when I heard Emelia speak over the vox, her voice tense and barely above a whisper.

"Inquisitor. Heads up. To your right."

* * *

><p>There is always a brief silence, an almost imperceptible calming quiet before the storm hits – just a moment, maybe two, where time seems to stretch out until forever. I could feel the beat of my own heart beneath my battered ribs, feel the quiver of every muscle, hear every breath I took inside my helmet.<p>

I looked to my right and saw it just in time; a faint quiver in the air that twisted in place and spread to resemble this almost-human silhouette that existed only in the ripples in the air against the glass windows behind it. Like cameleoline, but better. Thermoptic camouflage, almost flawless, except in those few moments where my would-be ambusher turned to face me, raised his weapon and revealed himself.

In the darkness broken only by thin shafts of amber light that shone into the cracks between support beams, desks, glass panes and office compartments, I was lucky to make him out at all. Lucky that even Emelia with her near-preturnatural awareness had seen him to point him out. He raised his gun to kill me, but I was faster, and then everything was happening at once.

I whipped up my plasma pistol up in less than a second and snapped off a shot; the gun flared hot in my hand and spat a bolt of near-incandescent blue fire at the blurred silhouette of my target. It twisted in place with a cry of surprise and pain; I shot him again and heard an awful howling scream as I dashed for cover behind a support beam.

A second later, the room lit up; staccato bursts of scarlet and emerald light tore through the night as lasguns opened up from both sides; Alec with his, the rebels with theirs. I heard the distinctive whipping sound of projectile rounds punching through the air to my right as Emelia vaulted over a desk while one-handing her autorifle and shooting at a target I couldn't even see.

She hit the ground running and started weaving through the office space like some kind of murderous, balletic dancer; emerald lances of light sheared through the air around her. She narrowly avoided each of them, and found her mark; I saw her crash into her target with a leaping tackle. She bore it to the ground; I saw the thermoptic camouflage of her target flicker and die as she whipped out her knife and drove it into his sternum.

Nito wasn't so lucky; he took a few steps forward, half-concealed up to his waist by one of the workers' desks, raised his rifle to take aim – trusting in the sophisticated targeting systems built into his weapon to afford him the accuracy he needed to score a hit at close range – just before the characteristic _bang-whoosh_ of bolter fire smashed through the cacophony of the night. He took one shot in the chest and staggered backward slightly, as if in a daze.

He looked confused as the second shot blasted him off his feet.

I didn't see where he landed. There wasn't time.

I saw Alec take cover near to me; he took a few lasgun shots as he advanced, but he shrugged them off. Carapace is built to deal with small arms, and Alec wore bulkier protection than most. I could hear him muttering almost silent prayers to the Emperor to guide his arm as he returned fire. Scarlet lines lashed across desks, shattering panes of glass, smashing bits of detritus and garbage from walls and shelves where shots went astray.

Something blurred across my vision to my side; I whirled and fired twice from my position behind the beam. I missed both times, the shots flying wide into the night. I drew back, darting wildly across the floor to join Alec behind a neighbouring desk. Our old friend with the bolter chose that moment to open up again. Several of the desks between us and him erupted in balls of orange flame; I felt the sudden heat rush towards me and drew a sharp breath.

"Kyriel!" I yelled over the vox. _"Kill him!" _

There are many men who would doubt the wisdom of sending one man with a sword to charge down an invisible man with a bolter; those men have never witnessed Kyriel in action. He moved like a blur, mirroring Emelia's mad dance through the lines of fire; he seemed to instinctively know where to move, how to move, and how fast – I saw boltgun explosions erupt precisely where he'd been just a second before, but never quite close enough to hit him. He closed the distance flawlessly.

The bolter fire grew more desperate, more rapid. It didn't save him. Kyriel mercilessly ran him down and with a roar of fury and triumph, cut his head off. I saw the man's camouflage fail as his headless body fell limp to the ground. Kyriel was already moving, a dark shape in a dark room, barely visible.

I heard the distinctive sound of shotgun fire in the distance; Emelia's handiwork. With the threat of the bolter neutralised, Alec and I rose from cover and advanced on our foes, firing as we moved. The return fire was patchy and erratic now as our invisible foes moved to retreat, the momentum they had gained from the ambush fading. I lined up a shot on a retreating blur and fired, taking it in the back. I saw the camouflage fail with a cobalt flash as my target dropped to the ground, a hole straight through his back.

There were a few seconds of agonising screams before he died; they weren't the screams of ordinary agony. Instead they were the desperate, guttural, nightmarish sounds that you never quite believe that men can make until you hear them for yourself. The sound of something _dying_; trapped and screaming in a twisted and mangled body. There is some kind of horrible, primal terror that awakens in a man's mind when he looks down at himself, at his body, that he has known for years – and sees it _ruined_.

I have lived with the screams of dying men for almost three decades.

I saw one soldier try to flee the room, darting desperately from cover to cover, breathing heavy, probably terrified. Emelia tackled him from the side and drove her knife into his ribs in a single fluid motion. He spun off to the right when Emelia pulled the blade out, one hand clutching his side, the other held out in front of him as he went down, crashing into one of the work stations.

He turned over onto his back and looked up in terror as Emelia closed in, her movements deliberate and predatory. She knew he wasn't going anywhere. I saw him raise his hands to try to fend her off. I think in his last moments he begged for his life – he certainly shouted something, but I couldn't make it out. It just sounded like panicked screaming to me. Emelia put her knee on his chest to keep him from moving away as she stabbed him to death. It didn't take long. She rose and sheathed her knife again, impassive.

When there was silence in the room – and only then – did we turn to look for Nito.

We found him lying motionless, the front of his carapace caved open. His body was lying at the centre of a slick of black blood that pooled around him on a section of carpetless floor. He didn't make a sound as we approached.

When I got closer, I saw that the second round had taken him straight in the chest. After the first shot, there had hardly been any chestplate left to save him.

Everyone knows what happens when bolter rounds hit people who aren't wearing armour. I saw a few glimpses of him; his chest blasted open, his ribs snapped all along the middle. The shrapnel had shredded his insides. Most of his blood wasn't even in his body anymore.

My only thought at that moment was that I should have left him on the shuttle.

Dimly I heard Alec start to speak; the last rites to commend his spirit to the Emperor.

"Rest in peace, brother, for your work is done." I said, my voice quiet. "May you find peace at the Emperor's side in the hereafter."

The words felt hollow even as I said them. But there are just some things you have to say.

I turned to the others.

"Let's move. We still have a job to do, people."

* * *

><p>We found the control room deserted. It was a metal-walled, secure room with one wall entirely taken up by dozens of monitoring screens that gave us eyes everywhere in the building.<p>

"Looks like they've got the hostages bound up in the lower levels." Emelia noted. "Under heavy guard. Take a look."

I did so.

The rebels had cleared a space out in what looked to be a large data processing centre; the Administratum had installed a series of massive cogitator banks; massive cube-shaped processor units to which dozens of hapless scribes were now tied to with makeshift restraints made from lengths of wire they'd torn out of some of the bigger cogitators.

There were maybe fifty to a floor, grouped in a cluster of levels around the twentieth floor. Each group of hostages was being watched by maybe a half-dozen or so Idirans. It looked like at least one man per floor was carrying a flamer. Anyone moved, and they could light up all the hostages virtually at once.

And...

"Hey, boss." Emelia said, pointing to a display of one of the lower levels. "Looks like we've got our answer to whether the Nyrians are here or not."

I got my first glimpse of the Nyrians' augmented soldiers.

There were six of them, all more machine than man. Black, elongated cybernetic limbs lent them a sinister, otherworldly aspect. One of them had no face, no human features at all; its head was a skull-shaped metal prosthetic bereft of any shred of warmth or humanity. Just a single mechanical eye, glowing a baleful red, in the middle of its forehead.

The Mechanicus had troops with similar levels of augmentation, but these seemed... colder, almost alien; the few shreds of human skin or features visible – a bare, expressionless face on one of them, or a glimpse of human flesh on another shoulder just before the pale skin gave way to smooth, black metal – only served to highlight their inhumanity. Even the way they walked – an uneven, loping gait brought on by their too-long legs – seemed like a parody of a human, some monster's crude attempts at masquerade.

I had complete confidence in my team's abilities, but a fight with those monsters was something that I would prefer to avoid if I could. Ideally I could have the Imperial Guard and Arbites handle them when I let them off the leash to storm the building.

"By the Emperor..." Alec murmured.

"We'll avoid them if we can." I said. More important was the new information their presence gave us. "We know it's not a random attack now. The Nyrians wouldn't send their troops along if it was a suicide run."

"Agreed." Alec replied. "But this place was just being used by the Administratum... what could they possibly be after here? Census data? Surveys of natural resources? There's no strategic information, nothing they could really use against us."

"Unless what they were after was here before the Administratum took over the building."

Alec shook his head.

"The Mechanicus made a thorough sweep; they threw out all the cogitator systems the Nyrians had installed here and destroyed them. There's nothing left."

"According to the Mechanicus." I pointed out.

"You think they're hiding something?"

"I think they could be, yes. If there was something here the Mechanicus didn't want disclosed."

The Cult of the Machine had always been notoriously insular and secretive; it wouldn't be the first time they had kept information from the Imperial authorities. Or used their monopoly over technology to force the other Adeptus to step aside and let them act as they pleased.

"But where? The Mechanicus isn't even using this building anymore; it was turned over to the Administratum after the tech purge was concluded."

"Does the building have any sub-levels? Anything underground?"

"Nothing on record."

"And how complete were those records?"

"Not nearly complete enough." Alec said grimly.

"Even if you're right, what do you plan to do about it?" Emelia piped up, turning away from the monitoring wall. Coming from anyone else, it might have sounded like a challenge. But I knew Emelia – she just wanted to know who to point the business end of her rifle at.

"If the Mechanicus _does_ have a secret operation in the sub-level, what happens then?"

"I don't know." I admitted. "But if I'm right, and there is something down there, then I intend to find out what it is. What we do from there... well, that depends on what we find there."

She hefted her rifle.

"Sounds good to me, boss. So how are we getting there? Last time I checked, there's a small army of rebels between us and the ground level."

"There's an express elevator that leads straight to the ground floor from the top – it doesn't stop anywhere else. We get in that and ride it all the way to the ground. While we make for that, we give the order for the Arbites and the Guard to take the ground floor."

Emelia nodded.

"Ready when you are, Inquisitor."

"Alec; send word to the Guard and the Arbites waiting outside; have them come in hard and fast. Let them know what they might run up against. Then contact the shuttle and have them send word to the _Wayfarer_ – I want two squads of my own men down here before the night is over."

"A show of force?" Alec asked, the slightest hint of approval in his voice.

"Something like that. If I'm right, then the Mechanicus will turn up with the Skitarii and demand we turn over the Spire to them. I want to be in a position to refuse them."

_Is this what we've come to? Having to bully other Imperial agencies just to uncover the truth? _

It was... sketchy at best; I was basing my theory solely on a single report of Mechanicus interference in a Guard operation and the assumption that the Nyrians weren't idiots – it was thin, and it wouldn't stand up in any kind of tribunal whatsoever. But do this job for any stretch of time, and you learn to listen to your instincts – and mine told me that _something_ was wrong here. Best guess involved the Mechanicus. Better theory than nothing.

Alec relayed my instructions. Kyriel and Emelia checked over their weapons.

"Alright, people. Let's move."


	6. Blood and Smoke

Author's Note: Brief chapter today; hope it's to your liking.

* * *

><p><em>The Spire, Kerrida, Idira<em>

_Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

We swept out from the elevator doors into a haze of smoke and embers, dark-armoured silhouettes edging cautiously out into the lightless expanse of the Spire's ground floor.

Faint lines of smoke made languid trails at the edge of my vision as I stared out into the darkness, focusing on a few lingering flames still burning in the distance; the scattered patches of orange-red light radiating through the smoke like dying beacons.

I could make out bits of shattered furniture; upturned tables with thin, spidery legs stabbing up from the ground like tiny black needles, broken chairs lying carelessly scattered across the ground in jagged piles. As my eyes adjusted I could see the oddly malformed shapes of the augmented Nyrian soldiers as they moved further away from us towards the front entrance.

I could hear the rattling of distant autogun fire and the distinctive, sharp crack of las bolts along with the echoing, ground-shaking _thump_ of some heavier ordnance being fired at the building from outside.

We moved, staying low and quiet, towards the entrance. I flicked a switch on my helmet and my vision flared bright white as the night vision kicked in, evening out to a dull green over the next few seconds. Faint patches of luminescence flared in my peripheral vision as we moved over patches of tiny flames and mangled cables. Our boots cracked over broken glass from shattered office windows as we got closer to the fight.

The Spire's ground floor was largely taken up by one massive entrance hall, where the defenders had established themselves, and the Imperial Guard were launching their assault. The elevators were further back, just in front of a set of closed doors that stretched back into offices and storage space. All around the edge of the entrance hall were tiny glass-walled office spaces and conference rooms – the source of the broken glass so prominently underfoot now.

Most of them had been emptied of furniture, with tables and chairs and anything remotely useful and solid having been thrown in front of the entrance hours before to serve as crude fortifications. We couldn't search for the entrance to the sub-level until the ground floor was secure; we'd risk ambush from behind, or worse, being trapped below and surrounded in the event that the Nyrian defenders managed to throw back the Guard forces.

I'd told them to storm the building, and my authority carried weight, but if the fight turned into a slaughter they wouldn't charge up the ramparts until every last one of them was dead.

We took up position behind one of the larger piles of debris and gathered furniture towards the back of the entrance hall. Emelia shouldered the needle rifle.

"If we're looking to grab someone, it may as well be now." She reasoned. I nodded, signalling my assent. Alec ran over his lasgun one more time and put in a fresh energy pack. Kyriel simply rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. His breathing was steady, his faceless visor impassive.

"Be ready." I said to all of them.

From here we could see the Nyrians' defensive efforts; perhaps two dozen ordinary soldiers crouched behind crude barricades firing wildly into the night outside through the shattered glass panes of the front entrance, and amongst them a half-dozen of the augmented soldiers carrying heavy weapons that spat flame and death into the cold streets of Kerrida, where the Arbites and the Imperial Guard gathered for the final push.

I saw one of them stride boldly forward from cover, backlit by a haze of emerald light as the Nyrians unleashed a fusillade of lasgun fire. It picked up some huge cannon from the ground even as the scarlet lines of the Imperial return fire lashed their way across the fortifications towards it, and opened up. Even from my position beyond the back lines I could hear the booming crash and rush of dozens of bolter rounds being let off at once.

Spheres of fire bloomed outside; explosions mingled with screams as men died, some blasted apart instantly, others caught in the edges of the blasts, left mutilated or crippled, or simply bleeding out in agony in the streets as their comrades surged forward in a rush.

I saw a squad of Arbites rush in from a side entrance to flank the Nyrians, distinctive with their heavy carapace and thunderous riot shotguns. I saw the dark forms of several of the defenders blasted apart by the Arbites' oversized shotguns at close range; the emerald lances of the Nyrians' lasguns splayed harmlessly off their carapace as a few men reacted in time to direct their fire.

One of the augments charged forward to meet them; eight feet tall and more chrome and cold metal than man, it swung a man-sized multilaser one-handed like a club and battered one of the Arbites straight off his feet. A defiant roar went up from the Arbites contingent in response as they directed all their fire and fury at the interloper. Its reverse-jointed legs skittered wildly backwards as its oversized, malformed torso jerked backwards from successive shotgun blasts at point blank range. It fell, emitting a piercing metallic shriek that didn't sound even remotely human.

Two of the Arbites descended upon its prone body with shock mauls.

The grinding, rolling sound of moving treads signalled the charge of the Imperial Guard; a trio of Chimera assault vehicles crashed through the front entrance, smashing aside the few flimsy door frames that remained. Guardsmen emerged from behind them on both sides, racing down from the rear ramps. The augmented soldier carrying the heavy bolter kept walking steadily forward on massively oversized legs, blasting into the crowd.

He managed perhaps another two seconds of fire before one of the Chimera gunners lit him up with the vehicle's multilaser. He collapsed screaming, his whole front a molten mass of metal and flesh.

One of the other augments revealed their position; crouched atop a crude pyramid made from tables and chairs. It fired its oversized rifle at one of the Arbites; a white-blue lance of light stabbed through the hall and burned the man to ashes with a single shot. I felt my eyes widen instinctively; there wasn't much that could do that to a man in carapace. I didn't know the Nyrians even _had_ weapons that could do that – not at that size, anyway.

Kyriel drew his sword and looked to me. I gave the nod.

"Now!"

We surged forward.

Kyriel broke into a sprint, sword drawn and held forward. He shouted something that was lost under the cacophony of violence unfolding around us and launched himself up into the sniper's crude nest. He drove his sword into the augment's side; there was the screech of tearing metal as he carved a jagged line into his target. It recoiled from the force of his attack, dropping the rifle. With inhuman speed, it produced a knife from somewhere and stabbed it at the knight three times in the space of a second; Kyriel's sword was a blur in his hand as he spun and weaved, slashing at the Nyrian's glinting metal arms with his typical consummate grace.

I moved into the swirling melee of the entrance hall; I ducked behind an upturned table and snapped a shot off at a Nyrian trooper on one side. The plasma bolt struck him in the gut, overpenetrated and blasted a hole out of the support beam he was standing behind. I registered his shocked, frightened face for the briefest of moments before he pitched over backwards and lay still.

The next few seconds were a blur; emerald light stabbed me in the chest but I barely felt it. I felt my arm jerk wildly as I stumbled back a few steps; lasguns aren't usually much threat to a man in carapace, but I still felt the kinetic impact like a tiny fist smashing into me. My ribs flared with pain. I gritted my teeth, adjusted my aim, and shot my attacker – an over-eager Nyrian boy, barely armoured and carrying a lasgun that looked too big for him – in the head. I fired another two shots in that direction at a pair of silhouettes I could only faintly see, fury and pain guiding my aim.

The boy's headless body fell lifeless to the ground; then I saw a massive shape crest the top of one of the piles of rubble and rush towards me. It was barely even human; its torso was a grotesque parody of a man, a black sheet of metal with crude abdominal muscles carved into it. Perhaps it was supposed to be artful. I regarded it as what it was – a blasphemy, a mockery of humanity.

Its lower body dispensed of all pretense and illusion; where its hips should have been was a bulbous black sphere from which extended seven skittering legs that slashed across the ground and the rubble as it descended from the pyramid of debris towards me. I raised my pistol and shot it square in the chest; the plasma scored right through, leaving a gaping hole that sprayed blood and some other foul thick, black liquid. It didn't stop; it screeched an inhuman wail with its face of featureless metal and rushed me.

I felt a stab of fear rush through me; instinctive and primal, of something massive and animal and predatory, made of glistening steel with legs like spears and a featureless, merciless face. It sharpened my reflexes. I hopped back, my feet nimbly darting over broken glass and fallen debris, and fired off another shot. It tore into the monster's left shoulder; its arm on that side sparked and fell uselessly to the side.

It screeched and lashed out wildly with all of its legs; I snarled as my gun flared white-hot in my hand and spat another plasma bolt into its chest.

Then it went for me in a single terrifying moment of blinding speed and pain as it drove one of its blade-limbs straight through my carapace into my gut. There was a tiny moment before my nerves registered the agony; then I screamed; my insides burning as the unnatural steel seemed to flare white-hot inside me. My insides felt like they'd been liquefied, shredded to pieces by this thing's razor-sharp limb that had stabbed all the way through me and pinned me to the ground.

I realised in that moment just how huge the augmented soldier really was; it looked over me, bearing me to the ground with its full strength. I felt my legs being crushed beneath its monstrous weight, I flailed wildly, terrified, certain that I was going to die as it speared my left shoulder with another of its blade-legs. I barely even noticed the pain over the agony I was already feeling.

Then it made the mistake that killed it – it leered in close, pressing its featureless face into mine, trying to grind my skull into the ground as its limbs twisted while still piercing my flesh. I was pinned – except for my right hand. Which was the only one that really mattered, on reflection.

I didn't have the leverage to shoot it; my chest was still pinned, and there was no way I could angle the pistol to line up a decent shot. As it drove its head against me with its inhuman, pitiless strength, I could feel myself growing numb, the agony fading away. I felt my right hand, the plasma gun clasped in its grip. And I laughed; not a sound of mirth, but a lunatic's manic elation. Its face drew back just an inch in surprise. I spat blood at it. Insolence has always been one of my finer qualities, I think.

Its head reared back in a mixture of fury and surprise. I pulled the trigger of the plasma gun and held it down; for the first second nothing happened. The Nyrian hesitated; I could feel it grow still, all of a sudden uncertain of its position.

Then there was a hiss as the gun heated up; it started to vibrate in my hand, insistent, the nova-hot fury inside it rising towards cataclysm. The monster pressing me to the ground, now sensing something wrong, reared up on its bladelike limbs and made to move away, intending to let my wounds finish me off.

I felt clarity return to me for a brief moment as the plasma gun in my hand started to burn me, its heat searing into my palm and slashing at my fingers, even though my armour; I had a second, maybe two. I looked down at my right hand; my trusty plasma pistol was burning white with blinding radiance. My night vision flared bright, blinding me momentarily as I hurled the gun, now a blazing star, at my would-be assassin and scrambled backwards as fast as I could.

Plasma weapons are always risky to employ; frequently priceless relics from a bygone age, they are little-understood and often fatal for the person who wields them. And, as it turns out, with a simple modification they can be altered so that they can be _deliberately_ overcharged in times of desperate need. It is a modification seldom performed – for the simple reason that most wielders of plasma weapons are considered less valuable than the guns they carry into battle. As I am an Inquisitor, that does not hold true for me.

I turned my head to the side as I felt the fireball bloom above me, searing heat practically cooking me inside my carapace. My body writhed in agony, protesting every movement as I struggled to right myself and get to my feet. My hands scrabbled for purchase on the ground as I tried to push myself up. A Nyrian soldier came into view in front of me; she was moving backwards, falling back from the entrance. She looked down, saw me, uncertain – maybe she couldn't tell immediately whose side I was on in the darkness and confusion. Her rifle wavered in her hands, only half-pointed in my direction.

I propped myself up using my left hand – my mangled, formerly impaled shoulder _screamed_ in protest – swiftly whipped my right down to my waist. I had my backup sidearm trained on her just as she made up her mind to shoot me. Unfortunately for her, I was still wearing carapace – and she wasn't. Her first shot struck me in the head, carving a jagged, burning line into my helmet. I felt a spike of heat and the rock of impact but nothing more. My first shot blasted her knee apart. Her body twisted, suddenly unbalanced, and she smashed bodily into the ground.

I thanked the Emperor for carapace armour – since I was sure that it was the only thing keeping my insides where they were right now – as I stood up, desperation lending me strength. I looked around; the Nyrians were scattering, falling back. A few of them fired blindly backwards as they ran towards the back offices, looking for another way out. Perhaps there was one, but for now it didn't matter – the night was ours.


	7. Descent

**Author's Note(s)**

Hey there; as always, thank you for all your feedback! I've tried to take it into consideration as best I could.

Maintaining a proper "40k" vibe is something I struggle with at times, I think, especially given that I tend to incline towards writing alternate universe. I adore the grim darkness of the far future, though. It makes for a fantastic setting to write in.

On the Arbites and their shock mauls: I imagine it probably varies depending on which particular group of Arbites is fighting, and what their particular variant of maul is; _Dark Heresy_ says that "shock maul" is an umbrella term that can refer to a number of weapons, from taser/truncheons that perhaps wouldn't be ideal for pitched battle to massive, electrified mauls that would be lethal even _without_ the added punch of electricity.

Naturally, the Arbites stationed on Idira favour the latter sort.

Without further ado, onwards; I hope you enjoy.

* * *

><p><em>The Spire, Kerrida, Idira<em>

_Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

I remember standing there amongst the softly crackling flames and the bodies as the sound of distant gunfire retreated slowly back into the fading darkness of night.

Before long the sound of distant fighting was little more than a whisper, barely audible over the faint, close by cries of the wounded and the dying.

The Guard medics sifted through the rubble and tended to the wounded. They dragged wounded Guardsmen out from under piles of rubble, saved those they could, and then tended to those for whom they could do nothing more.

The Nyrians had extracted a bloody toll; for every one of them that had fallen, we had lost at least three men. They had made the best of their defensive position, and the frontal assault had cost us dearly – most of the people who'd fought against us had been native Idirans, and most of them had been barely even out of adolescence; children given guns and told where to point them. The Protectorate's augmented monsters had made up the difference.

And what was it that they had fought so hard, and sold their lives so dearly for?

The Imperial Guard and my acolytes were still searching the ground level to find out. Thus far they had turned up nothing; but it was only a matter of time. It was possible that I had simply been mistaken – but there had to be some cause for their suicidal attack here, and there was nothing in the upper levels that justified it. There _had_ to be something else, something hidden somewhere.

Meanwhile, I stood immobile amongst the rubble, floating high on opiates to kill the pain of the twin wounds that would otherwise leave me unable to function. I was being held together by a mixture of hastily-applied stitches, synth-skin and my battered carapace armour. I should not, strictly speaking, still be standing.

I had lost a great deal of blood, had been impaled twice, and was in desperate need of some _actual_ medical attention rather than the crude stop-gaps that were keeping me on my feet at the moment. But I could not simply leave while there was still work to be done; if I _was_ right, then the Mechanicus would soon arrive to seize control of the Spire and everything inside it, to keep whatever secrets I was banking they had buried here. My authority might just be enough to prevent them from doing that, but I had to be _here_ to enforce my will.

My sole concession to concerns of my own mortality was the fact that I was not actively participating in the search myself. Instead I stood alone, a pale and solitary figure amongst the ruins. I had thrown my helmet to the side about an hour ago, and simply stayed staring directly ahead, my expression blank. The guardsmen did not approach me; even the Arbites gave me a wide berth, leaving me to my thoughts.

My Inquisitorial status - and the fact that I had been mad enough to hurl an overloaded plasma pistol at my enemy to kill him while still being in range of the explosion - had left everyone entirely unwilling to risk earning my ire by getting in my way, or in fact speaking to me at all. Even the report that the grounds were secure had been passed through Alec to get to me.

In truth, I was grateful; I was battered and hurt, even if the drugs in my system kept me from the physical sensation of the pain. I had almost _died_ in there – and that had shaken me more than I particularly cared to show, or admit. For all our feared reputation and virtually mythical status, we Inquisitors are still no more than men, and we are often every bit as frail and subject to mortal weaknesses as everyone else. It is easy to forget that. Easier still for _us_ to forget that, at times.

The trudge of combat boots on broken glass behind me stirred me from my reverie.

I turned to see Emelia standing behind me, the left side of her face still covered in blood from the battle. Three jagged lines ran across her cheek where one of the augments had raked her face with razor-sharp claws embedded in their hands. She didn't look like it bothered her much.

I was not sure if she was also on pain suppressants or whether she was just ignoring her suffering. Probably the former, I thought, upon reflection. Emelia was nothing if not a practical woman.

"Found something, boss." Her expression was grim.

"What else?" I asked after a moment.

"That Magos Aurius we found, looking through those files on the ship? He's on his way here – and he's given orders that the sub-levels of the Spire are sole domain of the Mechanicus, and aren't to be intruded upon or disturbed."

For all I'd expected it, it hit me like a punch in the gut. So I _had_ been right – and the Nyrians _were_ after something here. I do not, habitually, expect to be proved wrong – but even so, connecting a few tenuous dots together into a conclusion and then being proven right is... jarring, at times.

"What do you want us to do?" Emelia asked, her brow wrinkling in concern. I noted that she was still loaded for bore. Ready to fight anyone and everyone I asked her to.

"How long do we have?"

Emelia smiled.

"Half an hour. Maybe less."

"ETA on our reinforcements?" I asked.

"Maybe an hour." She replied. "Cutting it pretty close, either way."

I nodded. Ultimately, I had little choice – if the Mechanicus was so hell-bent on keeping this from me, there had to be a reason why. Beyond the insular and paranoid nature of the Machine Cult, there had to be something driving this Aurius, whoever he was, to keep secrets from me – and by extension, the Inquisition. Above all, my duty – whatever my personal feelings on the matter might be – was clear.

"Show me."

She took me through the wrecked ground level, taking me from the entrance hall to the rear end, to trudge through offices and corridors littered with the bloodied fallen – where some of the Idirans had fled, and the vengeful Guard had hunted them down.

As I started to walk again, I felt myself start to sway – my balance was off, and I noticed all too quickly that my vision was starting to blur around the edges. I prayed silently for the Emperor to keep me on my feet long enough to see this through – after that, I could collapse on an infirmary bed for the next two weeks if need be.

"You alright, boss?" Emelia asked, her voice laced with concern. There wasn't much that escaped her eyes.

"I'll be fine." I said, my voice strained. "You may need to carry me out of here once we're done, though."

She shook her head, frustrated.

"I should have been watching you. I shouldn't have-"

I caught her shoulder with a snap-quick motion that even surprised me_. _Emelia turned, frowning and surprised. She regarded me warily with pale green eyes.

"Don't." I said, my voice soft. Her frown only deepened, and she narrowed her eyes at me.

"Don't blame yourself." I repeated. "You did well."

We stepped over one of the Guardsmen who had not been so lucky; a young boy, perhaps just a little older than I had been when I was taken by the Inquisition. Now he was just a pale face with sightless eyes that stared vacantly at the ceiling. A hand that clutched at a chest, feeling for a heart that was no longer beating. A closed fist grasp a lasgun that was no use to him now. I leaned down and closed his eyes for him. Emelia watched me do it, saying nothing.

"You almost died on my watch, boss. That's not quite 'doing well' in my books." She said, sounding frustrated with herself. Dismayed that she'd failed. It was a different side to her, one I hadn't seen before. But then, she'd never missed a step before – or thought she had, at any rate.

"You're not my bodyguard, you're my acolyte." I pointed out. "I gave you a job to do, and you did it."

She had done it well, too – thanks to her, we had one of the Nyrian augments trussed up in the back of a Chimera ready for transport.

An irritated "hurm" was the only response I received for that.

"You're not superhuman, Em." I said lightly. "There's only so much any one person can do. You can't save me from my own recklessness at the same time you're taking prisoners."

She offered me a faintly bitter smile, but said nothing. I frowned, but let the matter drop for now. We had more important things to deal with.

Emelia ducked and stepped nimbly through a small hole that had been blasted in a wall earlier. I followed her, with substantially less grace. I still felt fuzzy from the drugs coursing through my system, not to mention my injuries. Emelia magnanimously said nothing as I stumbled when standing back up, having to lean briefly against the wall for support.

"Here." She said, gesturing to the ground with the barrel of her shotgun.

We were standing in what would be an otherwise unremarkable office that had seen little use by the Administratum – patterned carpet, mass-produced furniture, large glass windows with the blinds drawn shut against the night – but for the fact that the carpet had been torn up off the floor to reveal metal panels beneath the floor that had parted slightly to reveal an opening to whatever sub-level was beneath us.

It was dark between the panels, but up from the ground came a soft breeze of cold air.

"So there is something here. Has been all along."

Emelia nodded, regarding the entrance warily.

"It would seem so." She said. "You were right."

"Is there a way to get it open?"

She nodded, and stripped a panel away from an otherwise ordinary-looking desk adjacent to the door, with practised ease. There was a control panel embedded in the desk there, glowing with a faint green light. Protectorate technology – by the looks of it, unmodified.

Heretical technology, never sanctified in the service of the Omnissiah. Never consecrated to the Machine God – and the Mechanicus were demanding that we keep our hands off, that we leave this place to them. Everything else in the Spire bore the touch of the Mechanicus – from the cogitator systems that had replaced the native Idiran systems to the observation equipment in the control room.

None of the native technology had been left; most had been stripped out entirely and destroyed. Only the most inoffensive, mundane examples of technology had been spared the purge and consecrated to the service of the Machine Cult and their god of machines.

Emelia drew back a few more panels, pressed a few keys on the panel, and a trio of hololithic displays came to life. More Protectorate technology, untouched.

"All I have to do is press a button, by the looks of it. Doesn't look like the Nyrians were thorough about covering their tracks."

"Indeed." I replied, more troubled by the implications of what I was seeing.

"What're you thinking, boss?"

"I'm thinking that Aurius is a heretic. Look at this, even this control panel, these hololiths – it's Protectorate technology, left _completely_ unmodified. Even this room – there's _nothing_ here. No symbols, nothing to consecrate it to the service of the Machine God. Nothing at all."

"It wouldn't be much of a secret if they painted their sigils everywhere." Emelia pointed out.

"And disregard every last religious consideration? Even this, even just _using_ this alien technology, it's heresy."

"Alien technology? The Nyrians are still human."

"To the Mechanicus, it makes no difference." I shook my head. "All technology runs through them – their religion demands it. To keep a place like this, without any of the proper observances for the machine spirits, it's sacrilege."

Emelia frowned, troubled.

"This doesn't sound like much of a case, boss. Not to make anything stick, not to a Magos of the Cult."

"You're right." I agreed. "It's not nearly enough to prove anything. But I don't think I'm wrong."

"You aren't usually." Emelia shrugged. "So what do we do?"

"We head down, find out what was going on here. Gather the others – and bring a squad of Guardsmen with you."

Emelia arched an eyebrow at that last request.

"More guns can't hurt. If the Nyrians made it down there, the more bodies we have on our side, the better."

Emelia nodded and departed. Meanwhile, I sagged back against the desk and tried to focus.

So I had been right. The Mechanicus had been operating here in the Spire. They were dabbling in heresy, at the very least. And Magos Aurius himself was on his way here, likely with a legion of Skitarii at his back - the infamous Tech Guard of the Mechanicus. The most dangerous fighting force in the Imperium.

I was barely even standing, and it was likely that whatever secrets buried here were worth more than my life to the Mechanicus. _Though, _I reflected darkly, _human lives never do amount to much to the priests of technology_. In the event of a fight, it didn't seem likely that things would go our way. Even so, I could not falter in my duties – I needed to get to the bottom of this, whatever was going on.

Emelia returned with Alec and Kyriel in tow – and ten Imperial Guardsmen.

"Open it up." I said. Emelia nodded, pressing a few keys.

Almost immediately, there was a churning sound from below, and the doors at our feet slid smoothly open with a faint hiss. A chill air rushed up to meet us, and we looked down to behold a small, empty space – an elevator that would take us down to whatever awaited us below. An elevator that you had to lower yourself into rather than walk, like crawling down into your own grave.

I shivered involuntarily, and had a brief feeling of foreboding that had nothing to do with the danger we were about to head into.

_There's something down there, _that feeling told me. I pushed the feeling to the back of my mind. It was probably accurate, of course – but it still changed nothing. The duty of the Inquisition is to go where others dare not. And discover the truth. Whatever that might be.

I lowered myself into the elevator with as much dignity as I could muster. I felt, briefly, as if my ribs were being crushed by the fist of some great monster. After that, I brushed aside such poetic thoughts about my suffering and concentrated on catching my breath. My team jumped in with me; Emelia hopped nimbly down as if it was nothing.

Kyriel limped towards the entrance and landed one-footed; his fight with his own augmented opponent had been brutal, or so I had been told. He himself had noted only that he'd won, he would be fine, and then suggested that perhaps Emelia would like to regale me with the tale of it later. After I had healed, he'd noted pointedly. Alec simply dropped in, nodded briefly at me, and readied his lasgun.

"We're going in first." I said to the leader of the guardsmen, an older woman just shy of middle age with a stern, uncompromising face and a carapace chestpiece. A rare sight on a guardsman, the latter. She nodded at me, all business, all focus. I noted the aquilae pendant hanging over the carapace, a worn trinket of bronze and gold that looked well cared for. _A woman of faith, then. Good. _

"We'll send the elevator back up as soon as we're off – come straight down after us."

"As you command, Inquisitor. We'll be right behind you." Her voice was harsh and rough, almost jagged-sounding, with a touch of that faith and fire that was so uniquely Imperial in its cadence. It was reassuring in the violence it promised.

There were only two buttons in the elevator – up and down. Emelia hit the one to take us down, and the doors above us slid shut with a hiss, sealing us inside.

The lift's internal lights flared on almost immediately, bright white and glaring. I closed my eyes for a moment as the sudden brightness stabbed at my vision.

A slight tremor was the only sign the lift had started moving. The descent only took a few minutes, but we had no way to adequately gauge how fast the lift was moving. We could have been a mile underground or ten. No way to tell.

We emerged to a small reception room. There was no furniture save for a single, plain table and chair that presumably served as a desk for an absent sentry. The walls were a stark, pale white and every corner was filled with cold light. There was a single unmarked double door behind the desk. Nothing that indicated what this place might be, or do. I shivered. This place felt alien to me, no matter that it had been made by human hands.

We moved on past the empty desk and stepped into an unmarked corridor. There were still no signs of life, and an eerie, oppressive silence enveloped us. When you are above ground, what you might call silence is not really _silence_ at all – there is always a faint rush of wind, or the murmur of distant conversation, always _something_ to remind you that life is going on around you. Even on a starship, you can always hear the gentle hum of the ship's systems, or the distant pitter-patter of boots on walkways.

Here, there was nothing. Just the faint sound of our footsteps, our breathing. I could practically hear the beat of my heart down here.

The plain silver doors that were placed periodically along the walls were similarly unmarked; perhaps the Mechanicus had stripped all adornments from the place. Or perhaps everyone who had worked here was expected to know precisely where to go without the need for directions.

"Spooky." Emelia remarked. She nudged one of the doors open with her rifle, and looked inside. "Just a desk. Idiran-style cogitator system, left untouched..."

Alec frowned.

"Why would the Mechanicus keep such heresies intact?" He wondered. "If they meant to study them, that would be one thing. This just seems reckless. Careless."

"Agreed." I said. "The question is what they found there that made them question their reason."

"And their faith." Alec muttered.

Emelia motioned for Alec to hold the door open as she went inside to take a look. I watched from outside. She moved in, quiet as a mouse, rifle raised. She scanned the room, checked the corners, then relaxed and moved to the desk. She picked up a sheet of paper that had been left there by the room's previous occupant and started to read.

"Hmm. Just a letter from someone to his wife, by the looks of it." She said, putting it back down. "I guess he never got to send it."

"This doesn't feel right. The Mechanicus just left everything as they found it, then moved on? All the tech-priests I've known would have smashed this cogitator into bits and burned the parts to ashes. Here it just seems like they didn't even care enough to make the effort." Emelia emerged from the room, looking tense.

We checked a few other rooms, but they were all much the same. Some of them had more elaborate cogitator systems – one had an entire wall dedicated to display monitors that were presently blank - but all of them were security-locked, so there was little we could do with them.

It was not often that I had found myself amongst the forges of the Mechanicus, but even so, they had carved out an impression in my mind of what a place of science and knowledge _ought_ to be. The Machine Cult was insular, paranoid, stubborn – but they knew the proper respect for the power they wielded. Their places were filled with devotion and faith – a curious, alien faith in some ways, to be sure, but still _faith_.

It was what reminded them of their duty. In many ways, it was what kept them human after all their flesh had gone.

We held position for a few minutes until the Guard squad arrived behind us. Their presence was, to put it bluntly, deeply reassuring – the addition of ten more lasguns to our little expedition more than doubled our available firepower.

We moved on - trained soldiers, acolytes and one battered Inquisitor, all together in this little mad ghost town beneath a skyscraper on a heretic world.

Eventually we came to another elevator; my team and I boarded first. Whatever answers we had to find, they had to be in the depths of this place – not with the ghosts and empty rooms of this level. There were a dozen floors to choose from; I picked the lowest and sent us careening down into the depths of Idira, to whatever lay at the bottom of this mad hole.

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><p>When the elevator doors slid open, it became clear that whatever Magos Aurius had been hoping to achieve here, he had failed.<p>

Stretching out before us was a massive laboratory that must have been at least a mile long. Once, I was sure, it had been another shining example of the Nyrian approach to science – reckless, dangerous, without care for what they might unleash. Only this time it looked as if it had been our own Adeptus toying with forces beyond their control.

The laboratory was a charnel house.

For about a metre ahead of us, the floors were the same unmarked, pristine white metal that was used everywhere else in the complex. Beyond that, they were slick with gore – the mangled corpses of Skitarii and tech-adepts littered the walkways. The sanguine robes of the Tech Guards fanned out about them like funeral shrouds, spilling over their fallen bodies into the trails of blood snaking out from their wounds.

Scientific equipment that I was sure was worth an incalculable fortune had been smashed and scattered everywhere like broken toys; the few parts of the floor left free of bodies and blood had been scorched by chemical burns where uncontrolled reactions had run rampant and torn through the lab.

The laboratory itself seemed to be centred around a collection of massive glass pods, a few of which seemed to be intact. Each one was at least ten feet tall; more unnervingly, the few intact ones each contained a human figure suspended in a translucent, bubbling liquid.

I took a step into the room.

The second I crossed the threshold, I felt a rolling wave of revulsion and nausea; my hand flew to my spasming gut, and I retched, feeling slashing blades of agony through my insides.

Emelia was at my side in a second; her hand found its way to my shoulder, and she was saying something that I couldn't quite make out. I was dimly aware that I had fallen to my knees and shoved a hand into the muck and the filth to keep me from falling flat on my face. I tried to raise my head, and managed to get it up just far enough to find myself staring directly at the corpse of a mangled Skitarii and the snake-like lines of blood that surrounded him. It dimly occurred to me that blood didn't generally act like that; a dead man should not be surrounded by patterned swirls of crimson.

_The blood snaked out into the cracks in the panels on the white floor, livid red lines against a bone-white backdrop, forming twisted patterns in the ground. _

It took me a moment; I was still on the cusp of delirium – but then the realisation crystallised in my mind and I reeled. My eyes followed the lines from crack to crack, trying to follow the patterns, and I felt something creeping and cold press against my mind as I did. I forced myself to my feet, practically shoving at the ground. Emelia helped me up, snaking my arm around her shoulders so that she could support my weight.

I found myself still looking down at the fallen Skitarii, and at my bloody hand, and was suddenly reminded of an old story that someone had told me a long time ago. Shaking aside the memory, I returned my focus to the present, and to my acolytes. Emelia's eyes were wide with concern; Kyriel looked impassive and determined as ever; Alec's eyes were focused intently upon the patterns slowly painting themselves in blood beneath us, and I knew he had come to the same conclusion I had.

"Consorting with the warp." He spat. "Whatever heresy the Magos has committed by sullying himself with this alien science, it pales compared to this."

He looked around, contempt and fury etched across his face.

"We should leave this place, Nathaniel. Head back to the surface and burn it all to the ground before its taint can infect anyone else."

Kyriel was nodding in agreement; Emelia looked uncertain, her attention still focused on me.

"No." I said. Alec's eyes snapped sharply to me the second I spoke.

"We need to know what was being done here. What this place was for." I explained, forcing the words through the haze in my head.

"_Heresy_ is what was being done here. We do not need to know more." He said, his voice firm.

"No? If we burn this place, then we've learned nothing. We leave no more enlightened than when we came."

"There's no _enlightenment_ to be found here. Just madness – just the same damnation that found Aurius." Alec argued.

"And if there is more to this heresy than one hidden laboratory and one Magos, what then? We burn our one lead to the ground and might not find another." We _needed_ answers – we were running blind and ignorant; neither of those things tended to grant an Inquisitor much longevity. Whatever the risks, we couldn't just set the place ablaze.

Alec gritted his teeth; he knew I had a point, but was unwilling to admit it out loud. He took a step further in, smudging one of the patterns with his boot. Immediately I could see the lines of blood trailing around his foot, trying to form the same twisted pattern as before.

"Now we move. Find out what we can." I looked at Alec. "Once we've done that, _then_ we can burn this place to ashes."

_The warp has a will of its own, and it cares little for that of men. _

This place was _alive_ now, taken and made so by the ephemeral will of the immaterium; and for as long as the warp kept its foothold here, thoughts and fears could become as real as any bullet, bolt or blade – and so did the thoughts and will of the monsters that lurked, ever-present and unseen, beyond the veil.

If I strained my ears and focused on the silence I could hear the faint current of whispers from the darkness, their tiny voices like knives and barbs in my thoughts. I focused on Emelia's hand on my shoulder instead, focused on my allies around me, their voices, their faces, and the keening whispers faded to nothing.

I managed to draw myself to my full height and press onward. Emelia followed close behind, with Alec behind her and Kyriel bringing up the rear. Nothing leapt at us from the shadows, no daemons bored through the weakened veil in reality; I felt brief flashes of nausea, but nothing more. Even so, we had to move quickly – there was no way to know whether what we were moving through was just the aftershocks of what had already taken place, or a prelude to something else.

We were dealing with the warp. No way to be sure. No way to know at all – not without a psyker, someone who could stare unfettered into the tides of the immaterium and give us answers.

We passed the broken bodies of the dead Skitarii on our path towards the centre of the lab; what little flesh they had left was already starting to rot. It lent speed to our steps; whether aftershock or prelude, lingering for too long in places touched by the warp was dangerous.

I had little clue what most of the equipment did; I would need a tech-adept of my own to give me any particularly meaningful answers, and those in my service that could be trusted were all on board the _Wayfarer_ – not that I felt inclined to expose any more people than absolutely necessary to the evil of this place.

We approached one of the few still-intact tanks; it was surrounded by slightly raised lines of ornate silver embedded in the floor that formed runic symbols whose purpose was unknown to me.

Even in my ignorance I knew _exactly_ what that almost-human figure floating in the tank was. It was huge, almost grotesquely muscled; its rib cage was a solid cage of thick bone that I knew was virtually unbreakable; its torso was just _slightly_ off-human – where something like a dozen extra organs had been implanted.

Hardly anyone had seen one in over ten thousand years. Even fewer had been lucky or skilled enough to survive the encounter.

An Adeptus Astartes. A bastard child of the Emperor.

Aurius had been experimenting on Space Marines.


	8. Angels

**Author's Note:**

As always, thanks for the feedback! Every review is greatly appreciated.

Short chapter today, but I should have the next one up within a day or so. Enjoy!

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><p><em>The Spire, Kerrida, Idira<em>

_Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_**942.M41**_

There have been times in my life where I have felt small, insignificant – just a tiny mote of dust against the endless dunes of the universe; just one amongst uncounted billions, no more able than anyone else to change the course of my own destiny. Sometimes I feel that all of us are simply caught up in the momentum of history, swept ceaselessly onward by the vast, uncaring tide of the past, and the vicious caprice of mercurial fate.

The Horus Heresy was the most brutal internecine war the Imperium has ever known. It has been nearly ten thousand years since humanity's guardian angels betrayed her, and to this day she bears the scars they gave her in those darkest days.

The arch-traitor Horus had said that the galaxy should burn. For ten millennia, it has.

When the dust finally settled and we had to rebuild, alone and bereft, from the ashes, humanity as one declared that never again shall we allow gods to walk amongst men. Never again shall we place our faith in immortal angels to defend us; it shall be humanity alone, united forever under the eternal light of the Emperor. The Imperial Guard, the Frateris Templar, the Adepta Sororitas – _they_ would be our bulwark against the terror, from that day until the end of days.

No more Astartes. No more superhumans.

The Space Marine floating in the tank in front of me was a betrayal of all of that. It was heresy of the worst kind; an attempt to bring back the monsters that had brought low the God-Emperor himself and imprisoned him upon the Golden Throne of Terra. This was an atrocity that could not be forgiven.

"That's an Astartes, isn't it?" Emelia asked, her voice unsteady.

"Yes." I said quietly. "It is."

It was immobile, unconscious, those massive, powerful limbs simply floating in the tank, harmless and passive. I knew that one blow from that monster would kill any one of us. Alec could empty the clip of his lasgun into that thing's naked chest and it would likely not die. Kyriel could bury his sword to the hilt in its abdomen and it would remain standing. Leaving it alive was out of the question; alone it might very well kill us all. More than one and we would all die down here.

And there were two more surviving Astartes in the lab; floating in identical tanks to this one, both of them just as inert as the one before me. For now. There was no telling what might awaken them.

"I thought nobody knew how to make them anymore." She said.

_Nobody in the Imperium._

That was what was left unspoken. The Legions had not vanished into the aether, never to return. They were still out there. All of them. I thought of the Despoiler, drawing closer to Terra with each passing year, with all the might of the Black Legion at his back. No. The dark fire of the Astartes had not gone out of the universe.

I stepped around the tank, inspecting the raised lines of silver and gold that had been laid onto the floor surrounding the tanks. When I looked closer, I could see that they had been inlaid with tiny runes, elegantly and precisely carved into the metal.

"Most of the gene-stock was destroyed thousands of years ago." I said. "We've always known – or at least suspected – that the Mechanicus kept some of it for research. As long as they never tried to use any of it, it was... tolerated."

"They'd never willingly give up knowledge, would they?" Emelia asked quietly.

"No. They wouldn't." I agreed. "But knowledge is one thing, this is..."

"Heresy. The worst kind of madness." Alec finished. "If Aurius made these Astartes, he must be dealt with – and his treachery exposed."

"Agreed." I said. "But Aurius didn't make them."

The others looked at me.

"Look." I gestured to the patterns on the ground that surrounded the tank, the swirling lines of silver and gold. "Look at these patterns on the ground, these runes in the metal."

"What of them?" Alec asked, his voice surprisingly neutral. Typically the affairs of heretics and their methods did not interest him; perhaps it was _my_ seeming knowledge of them that had piqued his curiosity. "Were they invoking the dark powers?"

I knelt to get a closer look; the raised lines were held apart from the ground by slender, elegant threads of gold. I traced one of the runic designs with a finger; as I did, I had the distant impression of being regarded by something very far away, and not unkindly.

"No." I said softly. "Quite the opposite; these runes are for _protection_ from the darkness, not destruction. They were meant to keep the fell powers away, not invite them in."

Alec frowned.

"Judging from what happened here, it did not work."

"I'm not so sure." I said. "These runic circles, these patterns..." I pointed. "They were designed to protect what was inside the tank from external influence. They wouldn't protect anything _other_ than the tank."

I strode from the side of the intact tank to one of those that had been shattered, my confidence in my theory growing. The others followed me.

"Look here." I pointed to the bare floor around the battered tank.

"No circle here, no protection. And _this_ tank was torn apart."

"A circle wouldn't stop me from just shooting the tank, though." Emelia said, sounding unconvinced.

"No." I said. "But it might stop a daemon."

And it _had_ to have been daemons – tech guards slaughtered, no trace of the responsible party, the screaming taint of the warp everywhere we turned...

I paused, suddenly thoughtful. I returned to the intact tank and inspected the designs of the runes there, trying to recall what I knew of them. These ones were unfamiliar, but there was enough commonality there with what I did know to make a _guess_...

"Or convince it to turn its attention elsewhere." I smiled, finishing my train of thought. "To create something that will bar a daemon's passage on its own is difficult; almost impossible. But something that might _obscure_ its sight, make it look away enough to preserve something you wanted to keep intact..."

"I've never heard of anything that could do that." Emelia said, sounding worried. I was not surprised; I had been badly hurt, had been floating on the edge of delirium, and now I was speaking on topics that most Inquisitors knew little to nothing about. Runes and the study of them was not something most Inquisitors had time for, or put much faith in.

But I knew better.

"That's because _we_ can't do it." I said. "That doesn't mean it can't be done."

"Daemons are creatures of wrath, not reason; unless something directs them, they're inclined to mindless rampage rather than deliberate acts of destruction." I continued, before anyone could interrupt me. "_Something_ causes a daemonic incursion, they break through here – kill the Tech-Guard, destroy everything that wasn't specifically warded against random destruction."

"It makes sense." Alec said, mildly suspicious but sounding impressed anyway. "And what of the Astartes?"

"The Nyrians acquire Astartes gene-stock and try to reproduce them." I said. "When Idira falls, Aurius oversees the investigation of the Protectorate research facilities and invokes the Cult Mechanicus' mandate over technology to keep it all secret. He discovers the Nyrian efforts to create Astartes, and continues the project rather than destroying it."

"How would they have got it in the first place? Even if the Cult has Astartes stock, wouldn't they have to keep it hidden and secure, behind a dozen locked doors on a forge world, especially if they can't officially admit they have it?" Emelia asked. "Wouldn't we have heard about Nyrian raids on forge worlds?"

"Would we?" I asked softly. "You know how paranoid the Machine Cult is. If the Nyrians somehow managed to raid a forge world and make off with their secrets, do you think they'd be eager to speak of it? Especially if those secrets involve technology they were meant to have destroyed thousands of years ago?"

"No." Emelia admitted.

"And that's not counting the alternative." I said. "The Nyrians allow their researchers to do whatever they like; if a Magos came to feel that the Mechanicus was too restrictive, wished to take on projects that would have him executed in the Imperium..."

"He could flee to Nyria, where they would welcome him with open arms." Alec finished. I nodded in agreement.

"Exactly."

"So what now?" Emelia asked.

"We destroy this facility. Everything in it. Burn it to ashes." Alec said. He sounded more certain than ever.

"No." I said. "We can't."

"Why not? Nathan, you _know_ how dangerous this-"

"I do." I said. "I agree that this place has to be destroyed." I added, to mollify him. "But I still have questions, and the best place to look for answers is still here."

"Nathan, think; these are _Astartes_. We have to destroy them. The Nyrians can't be allowed to recapture the knowledge that's gathered here."

"They won't; they failed here tonight, and we can protect it better now that we know about it."

I turned to regard the desolation of the lab. I could still _feel_ the taint in this place. My animal instincts screamed at me to destroy it all, to burn it to ashes, _eradicate_ this abomination forever. My reason knew better.

"There's more to this. I know it." I said.

"Think." I went on. "We've held Idira for two hundred years, and this facility hasn't gone anywhere in all that time. They've probably known where it is for all that time. Why attack _now? _I think they were after something else entirely. Maybe something worse."

There was something else, too. The Horus Heresy had carved through the galaxy like a burning sword, lighting the Imperium on fire. So much had been lost and forgotten, never to be reclaimed. So much knowledge was gone now, never to be relearned. But the records were clear on the matter of the Astartes: they were creations of _science_, not magic. Not warp-craft or psykana – radical, extreme, unprecedented degrees of biological modification, but still ultimately scientific techniques, not warpcraft.

"The Nyrians knew they had to beware the warp." I said. "But the creation of Astartes is a _scientific_ process. Why were they so afraid of it being corrupted? Why bother with the runes at all?"

"They were right to be afraid." Alec said.

"Yes. They were. How many times have you heard of full-scale daemonic incursions like this happening for seemingly no reason at all? No ritual, no invocations, no sign of sorcery... just monsters bursting through the veil and killing everyone?"

"You're right." Alec agreed. "It doesn't happen."

"Except here it did. And Ellana and I saw that monster on the _Wayfarer_."

"The Inquisitor is right." Kyriel broke his silence at last. "If there is something here that could lead us to the Enemy, then we must discover it."

"And we must deal with Aurius." Alec said.

"I want him alive – for as long as it takes for him to answer my questions. Then he burns for what he's done."

We would be going up against the Tech Guard of the Mechanicus; there was no fighting force in the Imperium more dangerous. Aurius could not hide behind the mandate of the Mechanicus; not for this. As soon as he discovered that we knew, he would have to kill us all and then hope he could explain our deaths away after the fact – there was no explaining, no bargaining that could be done. Death by fire awaited him – no matter his station, no matter his authority. Whatever allies he had amongst his people would throw him to the wolves.

Despite my injuries, despite my pain, I felt strength and resolve fill me as I raised myself up.

"Sergeant. How are things up there?"

The only response through the vox was static. It could be that the warp was interfering with the signal – or it could be that Aurius had arrived already. No way to tell for sure.

We would wait; heading back up the elevator was suicide – we would probably end up walking straight into the guns of the Skitarii. More to the point, Aurius had to come down here; he could not risk leaving his project and his stolen laboratory in our hands, not when we might simply destroy all of the knowledge he had risked everything to acquire.

So he would come. Him and all his Tech Guard.

And we would kill them.


	9. Judgment

**Author's Note: **

Hi there! More violence this chapter. Enjoy!

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><p><em>The Spire, Kerrida, Idira<em>

_Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_**942.M41**_

It is a curious thing, knowing someone you have never met is coming to kill you.

Knowing that I was here, and knowing that I knew what I knew, Aurius had no choice but to descend into the bowels of Idira to face me – and to face the judgment of the Inquisition.

He had other choices – he could wait us out, train the guns of his Tech Guard on all the access ways to the upper levels and force us to run into them in a doomed attempt to escape, or else die from starvation or thirst in the cold depths of the laboratory. He could turn off the air circulation system and wait for us to die slowly, choking to death after we used up all the oxygen.

Unfortunately, in a hostage situation – and we held something far more desirable and precious to him than mere lives – one cannot simply afford to wait for the hostage-takers to die of natural causes. A cornered, desperate man who believes he is doomed might do anything – including simply destroying everything he could in an attempt to spite his enemies. Aurius could not afford to leave us alone with his stolen laboratory; I was certain that the thought of us running rampant, burning his blasphemies to ashes, would drive him mad.

He was Mechanicus; the only things sacred to him were technology and knowledge, and the thought of leaving such things in our hands would be anathema enough to bring him down here to face me.

So we waited for him; we could return to the surface in the hopes he had not arrived yet, of course. But there was no way to know for sure, and if we acted on that notion and were mistaken, we would all die, gunned down as the elevator doors slid open before we even had a chance to act. Here, at least, we had the luxury of a defensive position.

After a cursory inspection, we discovered that there were three ways to get onto the lowest floor of the Idiran facility; two elevators – one of which was the one we ourselves had made use of – and the stairs, at the bottom of which was a security checkpoint and a pair of solid-looking blast doors. Presumably Aurius had a means of opening them, but we, unfortunately, did not.

Thankfully, we had a fair bit to work with by way of armament: the slaughtered Tech Guards around the laboratory had been running heavily armed, and we secured more than a dozen grenades and Mechanicus-issue lasguns from their bodies.

Emelia was working on deploying the former around the elevators, using some of the scattered lab equipment to make impromptu tripwires and pressure switches. She was something of a polymath when it came to warfare; if it killed people, it was a fair bet that she knew how it worked.

Meanwhile, I had found one of the corpses of the Skitarii and was proceeding to cut into its armoured chest with a combination of a surgical scalpel and a hacksaw. Alec was overseeing my bloody work. I could feel the disapproval radiating from him even without looking back.

"_What_ are you doing?" Alec asked me eventually. I threw a strip of severed flesh over my shoulder to get it out of my way and got to work on removing bits of its subdermal carapace.

"I'm cutting this Skitarii's chest open." I answered, keeping my tone as light as I could. I was reaching the limits of my endurance; the painkillers keeping me on my feet were starting to wear off. It already felt as if barbed wire was being stitched through my shoulder and abdomen, and I knew it would only get worse. When the drugs wore off completely, I wouldn't be able to stand. I wasn't sure I would even be able to move at all.

"... I can see that." Alec replied dryly. "_Why_ are you cutting into that Tech Guard?"

"Tech Guards have built-in injectors for use in combat." I said, wrenching one of the sub-skin carapace plates to the side to grant me access to what lay beneath. "Stimm and onslaught, usually."

_Ah. Here. _

A pair of tubes that were hooked directly into the Skitarii's heart; in a flash they could be activated to pump the Tech Guard full of combat drugs that would make it faster, tougher, virtually impervious to pain...

One tube was filled with a pale red liquid that was almost transparent; the other was an almost solid black. I had been right – onslaught and the combat drug colloquially referred to simply as "stimm". The former sped you up, made you faster and more aware; it threw the world into crystal clarity and stretched out even the briefest moment.

The latter would make you feel invincible, unstoppable, and shredded your sense of pain – I had seen a man sprint a hundred metres on broken legs and one lung on while on cyclone, a variant of high-grade stimm that had caused a lot of people a lot of problems for a time.

When he had finally collapsed, he had been a mangled mess of organs and blood that it was virtually impossible to even identify as human.

"You're not..." Alec trailed off for a moment. "That could _kill you._"

"It could stop my heart in a second. I know." I said, jabbing a syringe into the black tube. "Has to be done, or else I'm no use to anyone."

Alec didn't reply. I filled up a second syringe. Onslaught and stimm – just _barely_ safe enough to mix; or at least safe enough that you could survive it if you got medical attention quickly enough afterwards. Most combinations of combat drugs would just kill you alright – or turn you into a killing machine for five minutes before you died of massive organ failure.

The Ministorum's witch hunters sometimes employed arco-flagellants wired up with just about everything to clear out heretic dens; they could tear through twenty cultists in just under two minutes before they practically dissolved where they stood as the drugs burned through their veins like acid.

I had wandered through the aftermath of more than one such raid – the walls had been caked with blood and flesh, and we had found the remains of the arco-flagellants buried waist-deep in gore. We had always burned the building down after it was all over, leaving nothing left but ashes and cinder.

"Onslaught and stimm is survivable." I paused, then added. "Barely."

"In your condition?" Alec asked pointedly.

"I don't know." I admitted. "Perhaps."

I looked up at him and offered him a grim smile.

"I would rather not, believe me. Better this than I lay down in the middle of a fight."

I pocketed both syringes; neither dose would last very long, so I would have to judge when best to use them. Hopefully they would last just long enough to see me through the fight.

"Very well, then."

Alec nodded at me and lowered his helmet onto his head, clicking it into place. I knew he understood, even if he did not like it – we are the servants of the Inquisition. It is our duty to carry on even when our bodies start to fail us, whatever that takes; to force ourselves onward through whatever means available. The mission is what matters.

Emelia jogged back over to us, her expression a mask of determination.

"It's done. Anyone who comes down through the lifts will be in for one hell of a surprise."

"Thank you, Emelia." I said. She nodded, looking almost surprised.

"No problem, boss. None of them walks out of here alive, right?"

"Right." I agreed.

I turned to my acolytes – my friends, my allies. We had been through hell a dozen times over and survived; through luck, through skill, by the grace of the God-Emperor. We could do it again.

"Be ready for anything. These are the Tech Guard, the Skitarii. They'll come heavily armed and armoured, every last one of them - don't underestimate what it will take to kill one. But remember this – these madmen were breeding monsters. The _same _monsters who wounded our Emperor. They'll have that to answer for when we send them to meet Him."

I paused, looked over the others.

"Take your positions, and fight like I know you all can."

We dispersed. Emelia was watching one elevator, Kyriel another, myself and Alec the blast door. Now came the waiting.

I briefly recalled an old adage that said something like ninety percent of war is simply killing time; the rest is the _killing time_. Now was the former; the air felt tense, thick. I knew at least part of that was the low, subtle influence of the warp through the thinned veil - the rest was simply the ordinary tension, the build-up before the storm of blades and gunfire that would tear through what was left of this place. What had happened here just hours ago could very well happen again; and we still knew nothing of the how or the why. More mysteries for us to deal with, and a stark reminder that my business on Idira was far from done, whatever happened here in the last hours of this already sanguine night.

I walked amongst the bodies of the dead as my team took their positions, looking for anything useful that we had missed in our brief sweep of the fallen. I parted the robe of one of the fallen Skitarii and took his sword; it was a brutal, inelegant thing – more of a cleaver than a longsword, but it would serve my purposes just fine.

I turned it over in my hands a few times, getting a feel for the sword's weight, its balance. Heavier than I was used to; _far_ heavier than the swords I had learned with as a younger man. It had been a long time; it brought back a lot of old memories, many of which I had left buried for many years.

I recalled my old teacher, drilling me through steps, making sure I got every movement_ just so_.

_Cast aside the part of yourself that can feel, _he had told me. _Now is the time to set thoughts of mercy and justice and compassion aside; now is the war-time, when the songs of battle are sung and the dirge of death comes upon us. Let your blood and your fury guide you; let anger rise, let blood run, let war call. The time for remembrance, the time for thoughts and regrets and joy and silence - these come after. For now, set it aside, and wear the mask of a killer. _

I had learned those lessons as best I could; even now, I could feel the cold stillness of battle-calm creeping into my mind, almost instinctive.

Time to go to war.

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><p>The first of the Skitarii lumbered out from the elevator doors, a towering mass of black metal, almost seven feet tall, swathed in a crimson cloak. It strode boldly into the laboratory, its augmetic eyes sweeping the surroundings for any sign of us. When it saw nothing, it stomped forward, crushing the body of one of the dead Tech Guards beneath a massive metal foot. I was too far away to see clearly, but I could imagine the reinforced ribs and subdermal armour laced under its skin crumpling under the inhuman strength and weight of the monster above it.<p>

The massive change in pressure also triggered the krak grenade Emelia had planted under the body; the anti-tank munition tore straight through the corpse above it and blasted the living Skitarii's leg clean off. Blood and some black fluid sprayed from the stump, and the Skitarii loosed an inhuman shriek of pain and shock as shrapnel perforated its underside, shredding most of its abdomen into bloody ribbons of flesh and chrome.

Its five compatriots came in after and Emelia triggered the remote charges she had buried under tables, desks, bodies – the rest of the Skitarii squad were hit with the simultaneous explosion of five fragmentation grenades combined variety of volatile chemicals Emelia had dredged up from around the lab.

There was an explosion and a flash of incandescent light; I had to look down and screw my eyes shut against its brilliance. When I looked up, the Skitarii were burning and writhing in white-hot chemical fires. Their cloaks burned to ashes in a second. Then their skin melted.

The agony overcame their pain suppressors and they started screaming; wild, inhuman wails of terror that lasted until they breathed in the fumes from the chemical flames and their insides turned to ashes. One of them, somehow, impossibly, survived – it swayed unevenly on mangled legs flayed down to just bone and strips of whirring cables and tried to advance towards us.

Emelia strode towards it, shotgun in hand. It tried and failed to raise an arm to stop her as she whipped the barrel up to its head and pressed it in.

Its mouth opened to utter a wretched gasp; as its jaw unhinged, a slick of thick black blood sprayed down its ruined chest and spilled onto the ground. Emelia fired. Its skull snapped back; the Tech Guard fell to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

For a moment afterwards there was almost complete silence; I could only hear the soft clink of spent shells hit the ground as Emelia reloaded and the faint hiss and crack of dying fire.

Then I started to hear them again; the quiet yet insistent voices at the edge of hearing as the warp drew breath, feeding on the pain and death of the Skitarii.

Six souls were wrenched from their bodies, cast adrift into the immaterium; I could see the edge of my vision blurring as death thinned the veil and the warp drew closer to reality, twisting sense and sensation. Sibilant hisses and dark promises lurked just at the edge of hearing; mad sirens whispering secrets only the mad would try to overhear.

The second squad of Skitarii came out shooting; the six Tech Guard emerged from the second elevator at a run, their guns already spitting death into the cavernous expanse of the Idiran laboratory.

The torrent of bullets riddled upturned tables and desks with holes; shots ricocheted off angled surfaces and filled the air with a storm of fragmented and broken metal. Glass shattered and crashed to the floor as bullets smashed test tubes, measuring flasks, and much of the other precious equipment that still remained intact. Evidently Aurius wasn't interested in preserving much of anything other than the three Astartes in the tanks, which the enemy's patterns of fire studiously avoided.

Emelia's explosives blasted two of them straight off their feet; which was no mean feat considering their weight and ferocious machine strength. One of them stayed down. Another caught the full force of an improvised firebomb head-on; he whirled back, throwing his burning cloak to the ground – but it wasn't an ordinary fire; the inferno clung to him despite his flailing limbs and best efforts until he collapsed, screaming, to the floor.

I looked over and saw Emelia moving from cover to cover, her shotgun momentarily discarded; she was moving through the cover with an autorifle, popping up periodically to spray the Tech Guards with bursts of fire.

I saw tracer rounds scythe through the air after her, but they were always just a little too slow – she managed to edge out even the augmented reflexes of the Skitarii. Their fire carved a trail of destruction across the lab after her as lasgun blasts scorched the ground and bullets shredded bits of furniture that were never intended to survive in a firefight.

Alec and I circled around from our position near the blast door to provide covering fire; only a few stray shots were ventured in our direction, and none found their mark.

We took cover behind an upturned desk – not much, but better than nothing – and opened up. Almost instantly, the group of Tech Guard split; two of them made for me and Alec, and the others made to chase down Emelia, surging forward with inhuman speed granted by their synthetic limbs and combat drugs.

My bolt pistol bucked and snarled in my hands as I planted three shots straight in the centre mass of one of the Skitarii. It stumbled, bleeding and leaking black fluid that could have been anything from synthetic blood to stimm; then it howled a bestial roar and rushed us.

"I've got him." I said to Alec. "You take the other one."

He nodded and dashed out from cover, spraying fire with his lasgun at the other Tech Guard; it moved off to engage him, leaving me to contend with the berserker. It simply barrelled straight for me, all thought and reason gone. I drove both syringes of combat drugs into the veins in my arms and stepped out of cover, sword raised.

One of the beautiful things about _combat_ drugs is that their effects are virtually instantaneous; there's no gradual loosening of inhibitions or sensations, no progression. Onslaught in particular takes a little over a second for its effects to start working - is a brief, bizarre moment where time seems to freeze and it feels as if a dozen glass daggers have just been stabbed right into your brain, only it doesn't _hurt_ – and right after that, you feel suddenly faster, more alert, more _aware_.

In my frozen moment, I saw the Skitarii charging me down – crimson cloak flaring behind it, its augmetic eyes twin pinpricks of red hate, its muscles massive and current pumped full of a vicious concoction of combat drugs. This was its suicide run; upon sustaining critical damage, some Skitarii units are wired to dump every last scrap of stimulant into the bloodstream all at once. It makes them inhumanly strong, quick, virtually unstoppable - but shortens their lifespan to about a minute.

It was _fast_, but not _agile_. And when I had learned to fight with a sword, agility was the first thing I had ever been taught – it was a lesson that had been beaten into me time and time again until it finally sunk in. I span, the stimm in my system kicking in - driving all the pain and the fear from me (it felt like being plunged into cold fire) – as I whirled just out of the charging Skitarii's path and stabbed the sword into its arm as it passed me. Blood sprayed, and the Skitarii careened headlong into a desk, its momentum and stability thrown off by my strike.

I shot it three more times while it was on the floor; when it got up, its body mangled and just barely held together by lumpy strands of mutilated muscle, I strode towards it, pirouetted on the spot and took its head off with a single backswing.

I looked over to where Alec was fighting; the Skitarii was closing in on him, the needle-thin lances of scarlet light from Alec's lasgun lashing harmlessly into its heavy armour as it dragged a huge sword behind it, scraping the tip against the bloodied ground. He was backing off, his shooting becoming more and more erratic as the Tech Guard advanced. One shot stabbed into the ground, scorching the dull red, blood-stained panel. The next blasted a measuring flask, which exploded and scattered broken glass through the air.

He fired again and this time caught the Tech Guard square in the eye; there was a tiny spray of blood as the red line flashed right through the Skitarii's skull and out the other side. It went into a panicked spasm as the las-blast flash-fried half its brain; its metal limbs flailed and twitched like some crazed dervish. The sword in its right arm flew in every direction in mad desperation, splitting a table straight in two with an aimless downswing.

Alec relaxed for the briefest of moments – then the Skitarii surged forward in a blur of focused motion seemingly from nowhere and swung its greatsword horizontally like a club. It smacked into Alec's ribs; he went flying, smashing through a desk and a pile of chairs. I saw him try to raise his arm, stunned; then it slumped back down and he lay still.

I froze, in shock. I looked at the motionless body of my friend and for a moment forgot how to even move as I was stunned into stillness. The sword in my hand felt leaden and impossibly heavy. I clenched my fist to hold on to it, feeling numbness creep through my veins.

Then the Skitarii that had brought Alec down turned to me, the spasms in its muscles slowing to low twitches; it was regaining control of itself. It was still alive, despite the hole in its head. Blood and brain matter from from its wound_,_ yet it was still alive.

Sudden fury coursed through me as I threw my bolt pistol aside and raised my sword in a two-handed grip.

_Not for long. _

Its face contorted into a rictus grin of spiked, metal teeth as it advanced on me. It scraped its massive sword against the ground as it closed in; I heard the dull grind of metal on metal and ground my teeth in rage. Then it swung, practically hurling its sword over its head in a brutal overhead swing that would have split me in two if it connected. It wasn't even close; I dashed to one side and speared it in the chest with my own sword. It penetrated perhaps an inch deep before it connected with the Tech Guard's implanted armour and stopped dead.

I yanked the sword out with a snarl and moved. It swung the greatsword for me again and again; I could feel the air move around it as it swept the huge, slab-like blade through the space around us. It was always just a bit too slow; I darted around each swing, missing them by inches.

I felt like I was riding the wind, desperately striving to stay in the zone, to keep balance in a struggle where one slip would mean my death; the onslaught in my system lent me focus and speed as I started to strike back, flicking my sword past the Skitarii's guard in tiny, lightning-quick motions that my eyes could barely follow. It felt easy, like my mind was hurtling down a road without my input at all, as thought became movement, and that movement became the blood of my enemy, lashed from his body and cast into the air.

I wondered for a moment if this was how Kyriel felt with a sword in his hand, nimbly turning aside every one of his enemy's blows with effortless poise. My dodges became easier, more effortless; I moved by inches to escape lethal blows and wielded my sword like a scalpel, meticulously carving through its defence with an artist's precision.

Then I saw it – my opening. It swung just a little too wide, and I lunged, ramming my sword hilt-deep into its sternum. I felt its armour crack under the force of my thrust as I stabbed the sword in and up. I was suddenly face to face with the monster, feeling all of its impotent strength as it roared, knowing it was dead. I sneered, giving it a mirror of its own demented grin.

Then it reared back and smashed the metal slab of its fist into my temple.

I managed to stumble a few steps from the dying Tech Guard before falling. I was out before I hit the floor.

* * *

><p>"Inquisitor! Boss, we need to move."<p>

Someone was calling me. I didn't move; I couldn't feel much. It would be easier to just stay down, I think.

"Nathaniel, get _up_."

I felt someone dragging me up by my shoulder. I didn't have the energy to resist, or help. I felt numb and cold. But I was moving anyway.

I was just strong enough to open my eyes.

Scarlet light danced before them, mixed with violet and indigo and shades of madness. The lights had gone out, leaving us in darkness illuminated only by the mad light of the immaterium.

Coruscating arcs of warp energy blazed between the walls like streams of molten lightning; everywhere around them gravity lost its hold and sanity evaporated as the warp overtook the materium and made the laboratory its own.

I saw figures moving in the darkness as I was dragged away; Ser Kyriel locked in combat against three Skitarii by himself. He was shouting, yelling out cries to the Lord of Sunlight, the sun-aspect of the Emperor worshipped by the people of his lost and fallen world. To them, he was a warrior god, bringer of light and hope, banisher of shade and shadow. I saw him bat away a Tech Guard's sword with a contemptuous swing of his sword and then cut off its head.

One of them turned a lasgun on him; he was suddenly moving, spinning behind the corpse of the Skitarii he'd just killed. For a moment he was lit up in glorious light as the mangled body shielding him was flayed to the bone by a scorching barrage of las-fire. Then he was moving again, suddenly holding a second sword; he engaged both of his enemies in a mad balletic dance, throwing a dozen attacks in a matter of seconds. Then, moving too fast for me to see, he killed both of his opponents with a twin-bladed spin as an arc of lightning lashed through the air, inches from him.

When he caught sight of it he simply stood there and stared at it, not even flinching, as if daring it to hit him. It didn't.

I managed to turn my head to look to my left; Emelia, her face caked in dark blood. She was limping with every step but was still managing to drag my uncooperative body along with her. I looked back over my shoulder, straining to even muster the will for that slightest motion.

I saw Kyriel making his way toward us as another group of Tech Guards moved in – they flanked a towering figure, more metal than man; a dozen mechadendrites extended from its spine, each one adorned with vicious-looking implements, hooks, or weapons. It wore the crimson robe of a tech-priest over a bulky, reinforced frame that looked built for war.

Magos Aurius. But we were in no shape to fight him, and the warp was spilling over into reality, no doubt feeding on the death and suffering that had took place here; I saw the Skitarii dead all around us, at least a dozen more than when I had lost consciousness. Emelia and Kyriel had, between them, slaughtered their way through most of Aurius' personal guard. I would have been in awe if I were not so perilously close to death.

We were moving towards the blast doors; they were still closed. When I tried to listen, I could hear something crashing against the other side, over and over with titanic force. I saw the door start to crumple as whatever was on the other side started to break through. I felt the slightest touch of panic; I think my body had all but given up on me, so I had little energy left for worrying about my death.

"Oh, God-Emperor..." Emelia said, her voice suddenly fearful. I looked to her, and followed her eyes. Aurius was standing by one of the tanks containing the sleeping Astartes. Then I saw the tank slide open.

The Space Marine leapt from the tank and crashed to the ground on its massive feet.

Then it started to advance towards us; it didn't bother to smash aside anything in its path. It simply crushed every obstacle between it and us, relentless and unstoppable, looking every bit the part of an ancient and wrathful god. And we were the perilous mortals who had no chance of killing it.

Kyriel moved to intercept the Astartes; he walked slowly and gracefully, every step filled with surety and purpose.

I thought briefly that he looked like a warrior-angel, then; far more than the Astartes, whose kind had all but brought humanity to the edge of extinction. Kyriel cast aside his helmet and looked the Space Marine in the eye as he raised his sword, preparing to fight. _Preparing to die_, I thought.

The Astartes reached him; in a blur its fist came at Kyriel's head with impossible force. I don't know how Kyriel managed to move in time; he stumbled as he dodged, caught off guard by the Space Marine's impossible speed and strength. The first time I'd ever seen Kyriel miss a step. Then my knight shouted something, incoherent, full of wrath and rage – and he attacked.

For a few seconds, he even drove the Space Marine back; his sword flashed in his hands, scarlet warp-light glinting off its reflective surface, seemingly everywhere. He carved jagged lines along the Astartes' naked flesh, spattering its blood across the ground. He darted under the Marine's swings, somehow avoiding blow after blow.

He spun sideways under a right hook that would have smashed his skull and lashed his sword across the Marine's shins, then leapt to the side as the Astartes launched a thunderous kick that would have broken every last one of his ribs at once. Then something changed; the Marine seemed to give in to blind fury, abandoning all pretense of precision and just went all-out to kill the knight halting its progress, heedless of whatever wounds it received in return.

Up until then, Kyriel had been doing the impossible; an ordinary mortal, a man, fighting one of the legendary Astartes – and winning. But I saw him falter as he was driven back; he carved a dozen wounds into the Space Marine, every one of which would have been lethal against an ordinary man, but he fell back – then the Marine caught the side of his head with a punch that would have killed him if it had landed head-on.

Kyriel fell, landing sprawled-out on the ground. The Astartes ignored my fallen knight and kept coming towards us. Emelia let me down softly, raising her shotgun. She took a single faltering step forward, preparing herself to fight that monster.

But she didn't have to. The blast door behind us finally caved in, and a massive, armoured form that dwarfed even the Astartes strode through the hole that it had made with its fists.

It took one look at the scene before it – took in its wounded, hurt, bleeding friends – and roared, an expression of pain, grief and fury that – for just a moment – halted even the Angel moving towards us.

The Astartes charged it anyway, full of that dauntless fear of a warrior that had never known defeat, had the total, unshakable conviction in the belief that it would be victorious, no matter the foe.

The Space Marine ran headlong into Rook the ogryn and crumpled.

Most ogryns are slightly larger than Space Marines; they stand two to three metres tall, and often weigh around half a ton. Rook hailed from a death world where the ogryns had grown to massive proportions; I had watched them stride in the mist between the trees like giants. Rook stood between three and four metres tall, and closer to four. He weighed well over a ton. The ground shook where he walked.

It was impossibly fast getting back to its feet, but it didn't matter; it swung a punch at Rook's chest, but the ogryn barely even seemed to feel it. Rook seized the Space Marine by the neck with both hands, and then smashed his massive right knee into the Astartes' chest. The Space Marine coughed blood; it bellowed in pain and fury, but for all its strength, it could not escape Rook's grasp.

I thought, distantly, that I had never before seen Rook truly furious; for an ogryn, he had always been surprisingly gentle and well-mannered, despite sharing the clumsiness and monstrous strength of all his kind. There was little of the gentle giant in Rook now as he killed an Adeptus Astartes with his bare hands. I saw the Astartes struggle as Rook's knees crashed into its slab-like ribcage again and again. It was no use; it seemed almost pitiful, at the end, its arms feebly swatting at Rook's own, trying to shake the ogryn off.

Rook tossed the dead Space Marine aside and roared a challenge to Aurius and his people. Aurius directed the Tech Guard forward; they lit Rook up with a storm of lasgun fire and bullets. The ogryn roared in defiance; coated in carapace armour that was heavy enough to very literally kill a grown man, he was all but impervious to their weapons.

It was not even a fight; Rook picked up one of them in a single armoured fist and hurled him almost a hundred metres with an overhead throw. He picked another one up by a leg; it flailed and tried to cut into Rook's gauntlet to get free, but the huge ogryn simply smashed the Skitarii into the ground with a sickening crunch and stomped on its chest for good measure.

Another revved up a chainsword; Rook simply grabbed it, and with a screech and a whine of groaning metal, it stopped moving in Rook's carapace-armoured hand. He then kicked the Tech Guard in the gut; it flew several metres straight up, then crashed into the ground and did not move again.

The others died just as badly; one managed to ram a sword into one of the weak points in Rook's armour; Rook responded by bringing down a fist like a hammer on the Skitarii's head that burst its skull open. Another tried to detonate a frag grenade at point blank range. He shredded himself, and barely even slowed Rook down. In return, the ogryn hit him with a table that he swung like a bat. The Tech Guard stumbled to its feet just in time to see Rook unsling his autocannon and open fire.

Aurius did not attempt to engage Rook. Rook knocked him out anyway with a single thunderous punch and dragged him unceremoniously across the lab back to us, stumbling around the blazing energies slowly tearing the facility apart.

The rest of my reinforcements spilled out into the laboratory as warp-fire began to consume it, black-armoured storm troopers armed with hellguns and bearing the symbol of the Ordo Hereticus.

I do not remember giving the order to evacuate the lab; I lost consciousness shortly after witnessing Aurius' capture and Rook's slaughter of the last of the Skitarii. I remember telling Rook to retrieve Alec – I had no idea if he was alive, suspected the worst, but wished if nothing else to spare my old friend from being left to the unchecked horrors of the unleashed warp – and then we ran for it, fleeing for our lives from whatever unholy madness had been set loose under the Spire.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note (again):<strong>

Hey there!

I thought I'd take a few moments to briefly discuss the present state of the Astartes, and the Imperium to a lesser degree, just in the event it helps to make things a bit clearer (I'm not sure how well I convey such things, so I figured this might be useful).

So, for those who are interested:

The Astartes are gone.

They abandoned the Imperium _en masse_ during the Horus Heresy, and it's widely believed that all eighteen Legions turned utterly to the worship of the Dark Gods. Now, given the difficulties of maintaining accurate historical records over ten thousand years – not to mention the fact that the Heresy was a truly cataclysmic war that burned much of the Imperium down almost to its foundations – this may or may not be entirely true, but it's the current party line of the Imperium.

As for the Frateris Templar... yeah, they're still around. The Age of Apostasy never happened; while a gifted madman named Vandire still came to power in this alternate timeline, the realities of the Imperium's rather desperate situation meant that he had to focus his gift for manipulation and power-mongering on simply preserving the Imperium's existence rather than trying to turn it into his own demented fiefdom.

As such, the Ecclesiarchy never really disarmed – the Frateris Templar remain an active and quite powerful military force, given the extent of the Ministorum's wealth and influence. Really, I just thought that the existence of a more powerful Ecclesiarchy with access to a well-trained faith militant created a more interesting political climate in the Imperium; you've got various conflicting forces with (to a certain extent) their own agendas, all with personal armies of their own that they can call upon to enforce their will.

Naturally, the Frateris Militia are still very much in existence; there's always an able supply of fierce fanatics willing to pledge their support whenever the Ecclesiarchy feels that a massive number of untrained but fanatical fighters might be useful to it. The Templars, though, are the true faith militant; a military force that's well-equipped and trained and with the explicit purpose of defending and propagating the faith on whatever battlefield the Ecclesiarchy deems most important at the time.

Hopefully you find this interesting (or at least informative!)

Until next time!


	10. Awakening

_The _Wayfarer_, _

_Idiran Orbit, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

I felt like I was floating. I was wrapped in warmth and softness, drifting high upon a thermal of warm air and silken sheets. For the first time in what felt like quite a while, nothing hurt at all. I entertained briefly the notion that I might be dead and in some kind of pleasant afterlife, plucked by the Emperor's angels to rest beside Him until the end of days.

But no – if I still felt anything at all, it was because my loyal acolytes had saved me from the inferno.

The last thing I remembered was Emelia dragging me from the fire; her faltering steps and sharp breaths, the uncertainty and fear in her eyes as she looked back at the laboratory wreathed in scarlet fire wrenched forth from the depths of the immaterium.

I remembered Nito, backlit by bolter fire. He had been a good kid. Would have grown up to be a great man, I thought. I had often found him playing cards with some of the orphan voidborn in the depths of the ship, always with a quick laugh and a ready smile. They had loved him; looked up to him as one of them who'd made good, now running with the Inquisitor, serving the Emperor, fighting monsters down on mad worlds riven by war.

Now he was gone, like so many other people I had known over the years. I was forty-two years old; I had been doing this for the better part of two decades now, and the pages of my memories were steadily being filled in with faces I would never see again.

In most places in the Imperium, I would be considered middle-aged. By the standards of the Inquisition, I was an errant teenager playing at war, with scarcely a taste of true horror. I wondered what I would be like, centuries down the line, dragged down by chains made from the bones of fallen friends. There are many, many old Inquisitors – a great many of us linger on through the centuries, growing steadily more bitter and paranoid until we can scarcely even see the people we're protecting.

In moments like this, I already felt old, wading through the waist-high waters of my gathered memories.

I remembered Alec. I remembered the greatsword that had taken him off his feet, and the monstrous Tech Guard that had wielded it. I remembered him twisting around the blade like a broken doll as it hacked into his side through his armour. I remembered hoping against hope that he might have been alright, if we could just get to him in time. I remembered believing that there was still some way to save my friend.

We hadn't got to him in time. I had been delirious from my injuries to hope that we could have. I knew that now. People didn't survive that.

My friend was gone, and I felt hollow.

I had known him for the entirety of my Inquisitorial career; I had met him shortly after I had been taken from where they found me, lost and dying on a burning ship, adrift from everything I had ever known. Inquisitor Sydon had appointed him as my minder, my guide, my helper – indeed, he would serve as my executioner, were I to stray.

He would guide me upon my new path, fashion my old skills and knowledge into something new, something that could better serve the Emperor and His Imperium. I had done so as best I could.

In those days, I had barely known anything of what was expected of me. I could fight well enough, and had never been any stranger to violence – I had been born amongst it, grew up around it, but the same could be said of so many other orphan void-borns scattered throughout the Imperium. And as far as I knew, the people who saved me knew little or nothing of what I had been, what I had known, who I had fought with.

Alec had taught me what I needed to be – taught a loner orphan how to be an Inquisitor. I still wonder why, all these years later.

It was a curious thing, the tale of my life; ships were immense, ancient, venerable things. Often they had served for thousands of years; in that time, it was not uncommon for entire decks to fall into disuse – perhaps due to battle damage, radiation spills from haphazardly-maintained reactors, or warp-taint from partial failures of the ship's Gellar field during warp transit.

You could be born, grow old, and die there – never even really knowing what your ship was, where it went, the name of the captain who ruled it. That might have been my fate, too, had I not made different choices – had I not been so determined to alter my fate, to rise from the depths and the drudgery to live a better, more beautiful life.

So I had risen from those bleak, lonely depths, fought my way into the ranks of the crew. It was from there that I had been plucked, by a hand far older and wiser than my own, for reasons that still confounded and astonished me.

Many years later, when I was just shy of adulthood, I had found myself aboard a different, dying ship, apart from all of that, and the Inquisition – and Alec – had found and saved me. Were it not for them, I would have died gasping, choking for air, alone and forgotten amongst a sea of distant stars.

Alec had taught me what it meant to serve the Emperor – to sacrifice everything at the altar of the Imperium. To place yourself firmly between humanity and the endless horrors of space. Until those horrors finally claimed you, one more sacrifice to appease the ever-thirsting monsters of the warp. Now they had taken my friend. One day, they would take me, too.

I got up from my infirmary bed – or tried to. It was a struggle at first; it felt like I had not moved in days. Considering my injuries, that was quite possibly the case. After I successfully wrestled myself to a sitting position, I leaned back against the headboard of my bed – noting without surprise that I was, in fact, in my ship's infirmary – and waited for someone to notice that I had woken up rather than trying to stumble out of bed.

Given the injuries I had sustained, it was quite possible that if I tried that, I might fall over, smash my head on something, or otherwise somehow interfere with whatever miracle of Imperial science and medicine that had saved me. It didn't take too long; I was the Inquisitor, after all. There was never someone too far from my side.

It was the ship's chief medicae who noticed me first. It pleased him to list off my many injuries rather than ask how I felt.

"Several broken ribs. Four, to be precise. Significant internal damage to your heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. If you had found your way to any other operating table than mine, you would be dead three times over."

The voice was deep, sounded like gravel, and belonged to a man who looked every bit like some retired general or war hero and nothing at all like a surgeon. It was quite possible he was just that; the man adamantly refused to discuss his past, which was not terribly uncommon amongst those who came to serve the Inquisition later in life.

He was huge; tall, barrel-chested, with muscles that stretched his long white coat almost to tearing point. He had a thick white beard, a perpetual frown, one piercing blue eye and more scars than I did. One was a claw mark that had torn apart one side of his face, leaving his left eye milky white and blind. He refused to comment on it beyond to say that the responsible party was dead.

Valten Holt was not in the habit of exaggeration; the injuries he dealt with and fixed on a virtually routine basis meant that, frankly, it was usually unnecessary. He was the best surgeon I had ever met; quite possibly the best in the sector.

"Yeah." I said quietly, my throat feeling dry and raw. "Thanks, doc."

His only response was a nod and a murmur that sounded something like a bear's stomach rumbling.

"Alec was a good man." He said, abruptly changing the subject. "Lived long enough to say he left everything to you. Said you'd know what to do with it."

"Did..." I fumbled for words, still partially in shock that Alec had even made it back to the ship, that he hadn't just died then and there. He had always been stubborn – it was just like him to claw to life just long enough to say some gruff final sentence before passing on.

That he had left everything to me was not surprising, I supposed. To my knowledge, he had nobody else, and leaving his possessions to me was the same as leaving them to the Inquisition, and he'd given everything else in his life entirely to the ordos. It made sense. "Did he say anything else?"

Valten frowned, considering.

"No."

He paused, debating whether to say anything further.

"You did right by him, bringing him back here. Not leaving him in that place." He said at last.

If Alec had lived _that_ long, perhaps he might have survived if we'd just... _but no_, I thought, shutting that thought down before I could finish it. If Valten couldn't save him, then he couldn't be saved. Not by any human hand.

If I had gone down to the Spire in force, brought a full compliment of Storm Troopers with me instead of my hand-picked squad, maybe Alec would still be alive. Taken the time to secure the building, met Aurius in the open instead of rushing down into the depths to confront whatever was down there. Maybe then Alec would have lived.

_Yes_, I thought. _Yes, he probably would have. _

But then... I had no way of knowing what was in there, so I'd taken my best people and gambled, as I always did, on the hope that it would be enough. I didn't know at the time that we would have to go up against Aurius' Skitarii in a fight to the death – how could anyone anticipate that?

Nothing about this Idiran mess had gone according to plan.

More than that, nothing about it felt _right_ at all. We came to this place to fight rebels, and we found ourselves killing Mechanicus. And the Astartes we had found...

"You should make a full recovery, thanks to my efforts." Valten said, interrupting my thoughts.

"And the others?" I croaked, still distracted. I needed something to drink.

"Both fine. The knight's head was purple for a few days. He'll live."

_For a few days?_

"How long was I out?"

"Five days." Valten said. "You should speak to Alina when you get the chance. Things have been bad."

"On Idira? What do you mean?"

"You should speak to her." He shrugged his massive shoulders. "I'm not as informed as I used to be." He added, over his shoulder as he walked away. Evidently he had other patients.

I didn't comment; his years of service combined with his prodigious talent earned him the right to be dismissive, even of inquisitors. I have always allowed people latitude that way; what matters is that my allies and my followers come through when it counts. Respect is more than mere obedience, and it can never be earned by holding a leash too tightly.

I slid my bare feet gingerly from beneath the sheets and placed them slowly, hesitantly, upon the ice cold floor. There was the expected rush of sudden cold that ran from my tiptoes to the top of my head, but nothing else; no lingering echo of pain from my injuries, no sudden wrenching as something important dislodged inside my battered ribcage.

My body, if not my mind, felt whole again.

Time to see Alina, and find out what had happened while I'd been out.

* * *

><p>My briefing room was a tangled mess of cogitators and projection screens, all arrayed around a massive obsidian slab, upon which was an ancient star map, etched in deep and painted in pale white lines. It had been enough of a curiosity to me when I'd first laid eyes on it that I had purchased it on impulse, snatching it up from the desert museum in which I'd found it to bring it on board my ship, where it now served faithfully as my briefing table.<p>

Right now, it was playing host to a wide variety of dataslates, papers, one flickering hololithic display that was showing what looked like a real-time image of Kerrida from space, and Alina, who looked like she'd collapsed in the midst of reading reports.

She looked peaceful, but worn; her long, dark hair was tied back in a hasty ponytail, but a few strands had spun free to frame her sleeping face. Her closed eyes were ringed by dark, sunken circles. She looked like she hadn't slept properly in days; she had probably put her head down for a few moments and just drifted off.

The last five days must have been eventful; and in my line of work, that seldom meant good things.

I put a hand on her shoulder and shook her as softly as I could. Duty called.

Alina sprung up in her chair, eyes wide in an expression of surprise and fright. She jerked her head to the left, saw nothing, then looked right, saw me, and made a half-shriek as she saw my gaunt face palely lit by the faint glow of the hololith.

"That bad, huh?" I asked, faintly amused. I had been shot at, stabbed repeatedly, and had not eaten in days. By all rights I _should_ look awful.

"Well, I _have_ seen paler men." Lina said, trying to regain her composure. "Mind you, they were _dead._"

"Not much sunlight on spaceships." I replied airily, waving a hand. "Nothing I can do about that."

"Sit under a sun-light or something." She suggested. "It might make you look a little less like a ghost and a little more like a person, you know."

"Inquisitors aren't people." I said. "We are the terrifying spectres of Imperial justice."

"Well, if you're asking me, 'Imperial justice' looks like he's suffering from a _terminal disease_."

"It's a good thing I'm not asking you, then." I grinned. It was relaxing, falling into the back-and-forth that Lina and I always seemed to share.

She'd been terrified of me when we'd first met; Imperial space is full of tales of the shadowy Ordos, most of them spun by men who had never even seen an Inquisitor, let alone spoke to one – even so, people know enough to fear us. We are above the law, in theory if not in practice; but where the ordinary man is concerned, we hold the power of life and death. Beyond that, _beneath_ that, we are but men – and women – doing the best we can to keep the Imperium together.

After a while, I think she just came to that realisation; that I am no more or less human than anyone else, and after that she simply treated me as such.

I didn't mind; it made me feel _human_, more than anything else. One of the dangers of fighting nightmares in the shadows for too long is the risk losing your essential humanity in a frantic rush to toss aside anything soft, anything vulnerable, all the parts of you that _feel_, that are capable of being hurt. So many inquisitors cultivate this august, unassailable image.

I think, perhaps, that is why so many of us go radical in the end. What is the measure of a soul that no longer remembers what it means to be human at all? What is left to keep that soul in the Emperor's light when it has waded for so long in utter darkness?

Or perhaps I simply look for excuses to pretend I am still no more than any other man – no more than any other Imperial citizen, rather than someone whose every action throws echoes that can tear apart the lives of millions of people he will never meet.

"So, what _did_ you come here to ask me? I'm sure you didn't tear me from my gentle repose atop this very comfortable slab just to hear my finely honed wit." She was making a fine show of her mock irritation. I appreciated it. Helped keep my mind off things – things like the friends I still had to bury.

"I'm afraid not. Duty calls."

"As it always does." Her wry smile faded to a frustrated grimace as she surveyed the reports and dataslates that had served as her impromptu – and doubtless rather uncomfortable – pillow. She blinked, looked over one particular stack of slates, and sighed.

"How bad is it?" I asked gently.

"It's bad." She replied, her cheer fading away as the reality of our situation settled in on her again. She paused for a few moments, collecting her thoughts, shuffling papers. She picked up one particular dataslate that was open on a document headed by the winged skull symbol of the Imperial Guard.

"We've got open revolt down there." She said at last. "The rebels hit Valice two days ago and took it overnight. Now there's fighting in the streets of Kerrida. The Guard have imposed martial law but they can barely keep order."

"How'd they do it?" I asked. "Take Valice in one night?"

"A lot of Valice, like Kerrida, is surrounded by forest and woodland, so there's not much visibility out to the surrounding areas at the best of times. The best guess is they ran their troops through the thickest parts to block line of sight from orbit and the sky, used stealth fields to block everything else, and hit the Guard strongholds first to crush all resistance."

"All that within a day? How much hardware did they have with them?"

"Everything, I think. Augmented soldiers, tanks, striders... everything but air support."

I frowned. The implications of that were... unpleasant, to say the least.

"Any idea where they were hiding that much manpower? That kind of a force can't be easy to hide, Nyrian stealth gear or not. Not to mention moving it around without the Guard air patrols catching sight of any of it."

Lina shrugged helplessly.

"None at all. As best as we can tell, they just appeared from out of nowhere. The Guard didn't have a chance."

She was right; the outcome of that fight wasn't surprising at all. A single, night-long contest for control of a city played to all of the Protectorate's strengths, and none of ours. Nyrian wargear was sophisticated, deadly, precise – but delicate, expensive and difficult to maintain.

A lone combat strider against a Leman Russ wasn't a fight at all; but run the tank through rain and snow, through haywire storms and an open warp rift, and it would still be combat-worthy with an even halfway competent tech-initiate maintaining it.

The same couldn't be said for the strider – and the fact that the rebels apparently had a force of them out there that was still able to operate was chilling; not because it _existed_, but because it meant they had the logistical capabilities on Idira to keep dozens of those notoriously finicky war machines in working order. It meant the Imperium had missed something _huge_.

The other possibility was that the Protectorate had somehow been able to transport a huge military force onto Idira without us even noticing it.

Neither possibility was a pleasant one.

"We conquered Idira _two hundred_ years ago. There have been three rebellions since then." I said aloud. "How can they still have this much hardware to throw at us? And why now?"

"Because they know there's no help coming." Lina said softly, pointing out the obvious. "The fleet's away on crusade, and the Lord Commander won't turn back to save one world."

"No matter how important it might turn out to be." I said quietly. "If I'm right, the Astartes we found was just the beginning. And there's only one person who can tell us what the end might be."

"Aurius." She said.

"Yes. I'm going to have a little talk with our dear friend the Magos."

Something occurred to me; something I'd been missing.

"Oh. Has Theo made contact yet?"

Lina nodded, frowning. There was only one reason I would want Theo for something like this, and it wasn't a pleasant one. Nor would it be without consequences.

"He arrived this morning. He came to see you, but you were still out. I think he's with Ellana now."

I smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.

"Good. Have him meet me by the interrogation room."

Lina hesitated for a moment, uncertain.

"Nathan..." She ventured.

"What is it?"

She met my eyes.

"If you do this, you know that Aurius can't leave this ship alive."

I paused for a moment, somewhat shocked. It was true, of course – I knew that well enough. But to hear Lina say it – to spell out the cold, ruthless truth – was still surprising. I still thought of her as that noble girl I'd found on Aretas, not the Throne agent she was becoming.

"I know." I said. "But that was always the plan. Aurius dies for his crimes – by my hand, none else's."

Even that would cause problems. My power was only _theoretically_ unfettered by political considerations. In practice, Inquisitors could rarely simply execute senior members of the Mechanicus without evidence or a trial.

And whatever evidence I had on him before was now being consumed by warp-fire, and there was no telling whether the surviving levels of the facility might hold anything damning or not. I might very well be executing a Magos of the Cult of Mars without a shred of meaningful evidence at all.

I was going to do it anyway. I did not believe that I had any other choice.


	11. Aurius

_The _Wayfarer_, _

_Idiran Orbit, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

Aurius was a terrifying figure, even shackled and bound by adamantium chains.

He has the better part of seven feet tall; a towering figure of flesh riven by steel and chrome. What I found most disturbing was his unnatural _stillness_. His chest did not rise and fall; his unblinking, blood-red augmetic eyes did not blink; he gave no physical sign that he acknowledged my presence at all beyond a faint shift of his massive head in my direction.

Behind those motionless eyes lurked a cold intellect that, I knew, dwarfed my own. And it was studying me, cataloguing my every reaction as if I were an errant insect that had stumbled into its spider's lair. The mechadendrites flaring out from Aurius' spine, each one carefully restrained, did nothing to lessen that impression.

To him, I was nothing more than just another bag of flesh – just meat and bone, without even the slightest trace of cybernetics – the 'true flesh', as the Machine Cult would call it – to redeem me from my organic heritage. I did not need to read his mind to know that the Magos likely held me in utter contempt.

When he spoke, I could feel the vibrations in the walls.

"Are you afraid, inquisitor?" Aurius' voice was a dry, mechanical rasp. "I can see your heart beating beneath those broken ribs of yours."

I offered him a slight smile.

"Perhaps." I allowed. "But you're the one in chains, magos."

Aurius' lips moved into a snarling mockery of a smile.

"For now. Your chains will not keep me forever."

"Who do you think is coming to save you, Aurius?" I asked. "I left your personal guard in ashes along with your laboratory and your pet Astartes."

There was a hint of a reaction at that; some tiny mote of irritation flickering through the machine's façade.

"That was not you, I think. No, you would have preserved my work."

I said nothing; allowing him to speak meant be might say something useful. That Aurius seemed to know little of the cause for the immaterium suddenly spilling over into reality and destroying the laboratory in a wave of warp-flame of lightning was not surprising. It meant yet more unanswered questions; but for now, I had to deal with what was in front of me - what I could deal with _right now_, as opposed to in my ever-nebulous future.

"No; I know your reputation. Inquisitor Aymeric. Reckless. Too curious. Soft." His lips twisted upwards at that last word. "You would have looked deep into the heart of my project, my studies, sought in vain for an understanding you would never come to."

"You should ask the people of Aretas how soft they think I am." I replied, faintly irritated. I had heard this line of criticism before. It did not impress me then, and it did not now.

Aurius chuckled in response; it sounded like grating metal.

"Do you think you _frighten_ me? You are a boy, an untested _child_ only playing at war and inquisition. You simper and _whine_ and fumble in the dark for scraps of knowledge you could not possibly understand. I am a Magos of the Cult Mechanicus – my mind is rich with the sacred lore of technology, while you skulk in the shadows, learning and knowing _nothing_."

The magos strained against his chains; they rattled then pulled taut as he tried to tear himself free from the wall. I could hear the metal straining against his ferocious strength.

"Then enlighten me, Aurius. What is it you were doing here?"

The magos laughed again.

"When I am free, I will _show_ you what I intend. I will permit you to watch, _screaming_, as I rip your insides from that pathetic sack of meat you call a body."

"I have you in chains. Your bodyguards are dead. Your soldiers are dead." I repeated flatly, ignoring his threats. "You are not going anywhere. Even if someone bothers to muster an attempt to save your worthless life, I will have you executed before they could ever reach you."

"I do not think so; you are alone here, little inquisitor. Alone and friendless, surrounded by liars and heretics. Do you think you can change the path of this world, this sector, with whatever scraps of mortal defiance you can muster?"

"What do you know of this world's 'path', Aurius? Tell me."

All heretics ranted and raved. It was only the possibility that Aurius might actually be involved in something greater than the both of us that made me attempt to question him at all.

"Enough to know that you have no chance to alter it. Release me to my work and leave this place." Aurius was trying to sound reasonable, even charitable. "You are a skittering insect before this; a pitiful, writhing _bug_ clinging to the dust in this coming storm."

"What coming storm, magos? I've heard a thousand different condemned men all declare on their own that doom is coming. Every defiant heretic taken alive promises woe and damnation upon his captors; every last one burns like the thousand before him, and that doom they promises never comes."

"None like me. _Release me, _inquisitor. You know you cannot hold me; my brethren will never allow it."

"Your brethren won't be so happy to help you when they find out what you've done." I pointed out.

"And how will you prove it to them? You have ashes and embers, nothing more. None but you and I know what transpired, and the servants of the Machine God do not bow to the Inquisition."

He was right. Even if I could prove it, it wasn't beyond possibility that the Mechanicus might simply kill us _both_ to keep the truth from becoming known. The creation of Astartes was not a trivial matter. Even a refusal to destroy Astartes born of Nyrian work was unpardonable heresy – and Aurius had evidently learned enough from their blasphemous science to be able to command the products of it.

"Last chance, Aurius. Tell me what I want to know, or I will take it from you."

"I have devised crueler tortures than you could ever conceive of, _insect_. I have listened to the screams of a thousand men like you who presumed to think they could endure me; I will tell you nothing, and you will fumble in the darkness in ignorance until my brethren come to end you."

"I have no need to torture you." I said, my voice impassive. "When I said I would take what I wanted, I meant simply that. I have no need of crude methods and petty tortures; I will split your thoughts open and _take_ your knowledge, if you will not offer it freely."

I gave him my coldest smile.

"You were right about me. I am soft. I am reckless. I was soft, and so I offered you this small mercy – a chance to confess your sins before I sent you to face our Emperor. I am reckless, and so now I will have your mind torn open until I have what I need from you. And _then_ I will send your flayed soul to the Emperor."

Aurius said nothing. I think he had started to realise exactly what I intended to do to him.

I inclined my head upwards in the direction of the security camera that had been recording everything from one of the corners.

"Theo. Get in here."

In truth, I had not expected Aurius to confess to anything. It was as I said – I simply felt obliged to offer him the chance – one last chance to cleanse his soul before I sent him on his way to face the Emperor's justice. I _could_ torture him anyway, of course, but I doubted it would achieve anything – Aurius' body was more machine than flesh, and I was not sure if he was even _capable_ of being tortured that way.

I had summoned Theo, originally, to train Ellana. He was not, strictly speaking, in my service – but he owed me a great deal, and so he came when I called. The Telepathica, I believed, could not help her. So I called upon a different kind of teacher: a rogue psyker who had endured in isolation through strength of will, who had learned to master his powers on his own.

The temperature in the room dropped sharply as Theo entered; his eyes were already pinpricks of blazing violet light against his dark skin as he strode into the room and closed the distance between the door and Aurius in a few swift steps.

Aurius recoiled the second he realised what was about to happen; his massive bulk slammed back against the wall as he tried in vain to get himself away. Theo reached up and grabbed Aurius' head with both hands; there was a sharp crack as the floor around them flash-froze and turned to ice.

The vast majority of psykers operating legally in the Imperium have undergone the Rite of Sanctioning. It makes them safe – or as safe as a psyker can ever be – and tightens a noose around the throat of the furious power that courses through them like molten lava, that uses them as its conduit into this world.

Theo had not. Most rogue psykers went mad, or lost their souls to damnation as their powers awoke in childhood or early adolescence. Theo had survived, with his power intact. Now he served me, whenever I called upon him. It was not often, but I needed him now.

Aurius writhed, his body coated with a thin layer of frost that glistened with the reflected light of the warp. His mechadendrites lashed against their restraints in a futile effort to tear my telepath to pieces. Theo wielded the power of his mind like a lance and stabbed it into the magos' memories; I could _feel_ the barriers between minds weakening, felt my mind assaulted by images and thoughts that were not my own.

"You will burn for this, inquisitor!" Aurius shouted, managing to turn his head in Theo's grasp to look at me. His red eyes blazed like scarlet coals, smoke and incarnate hate rushing into the air as the warp took his loathing and made it real. I smelt the embers of distant fires and caught a _flash_ of burning flesh – _thousands of burning bodies turned black and rotten in the fires that burn forever –_ as the magos' thoughts lashed against my own.

It was true. Telepathic violation of a magos of the Mechanicus, even by an inquisitor, was frequently punished by death. And I was acting alone, without higher authority to support me. But what higher authority could I appeal to?

The only currency the Mechanicus truly valued was secrets; knowledge. Stealing those secrets by psychic force was something they would never forgive, never forget – regardless of my reasons.

"_Be silent, magos._" Theo ordered. His voice was a sibilant hiss as he grasped the side of Aurius' metal face with a claw-like grip and smashed it into the wall to make his point. Aurius roared in pain and rage; Theo smashed his head into the wall again and then grabbed the magos' neck with a burning hand.

There was a sharp, snapping hiss as flesh and metal burned under Theo's molten fist, and the magos' roaring defiance turned to screams of pain.

I had no doubt that Aurius had pain suppressors far more complete and effective than anything his Skitarii had been implanted with. With most of his body comprised of synthetic materials; bionic limbs, replacement organs, nerves of carbon and steel, it was even possible that Aurius could no longer even truly feel physical pain.

But this was the warp; the will of that nightmare realm of twilight horror, from whence all of the worst and most broken reflections of the galaxy's trillion souls stare back at we mortals. The warp did not care if Aurius' body could not feel pain; its insidious, living will laced itself through the veins of the magos' very spirit and _made_ him suffer.

Theo wielded his mind like a hatchet, hacking into the magos' thoughts and memories with almost careless fervour. This was no gentle sifting through the currents of memory; Theo was ripping Aurius' mind apart, very literally _flaying_ memories and casting them into the aether. I had told him not to be gentle; the soft approach was likely to allow the magos the chance to resist, to hide the truths we needed beneath layers of mental defences.

The truth – the truth that both Aurius and I knew – was that a determined telepath who had no need to preserve your mind or sanity for what came after was virtually impossible to resist. Had Theo taken a gentler path, Aurius might have been able to level his considerable mental fortitude in some measure of resistance. As it stood, Theo was an axe-wielding madman battering down the few flimsy doors that stood between him and an unarmed man.

He reached back, gesturing for me to step forward. I did so; the air between us was thick, made up of a curtain of Aurius' severed memories.

_I saw the Aurius of before, a ragged man adorned in rags, bound in barbed chains to an uncaring master. I looked down through his eyes at his shackled wrists, chained in rusty manacles that rubbed and tore at his skin. He was dragged to his feet and forced to shuffle on bare feet over cracked, boiling earth that left him in blistered agony at the end of every day. Such was the life of a menial of the Adeptus Mechanicus. A short, bitter, miserable affair that few ever leave. _

Aurius still tried to howl his defiance against my psyker, but it was no use. Theo would not be denied. I took another step forward.

_I remembered his disbelief at being set free. It is often said in the Imperium that the truly loyal slave learns to love the lash. Aurius had feared it, always; he had cringed in the darkness like a terrified, rabid animal whenever the masters had walked by, flickering the tips of shock-whips through the acrid air. He had been taken for a greater purpose, they said. Thank you, he had said. Inside he felt only numbness and terror. _

His mechadendrites twisted uselessly against their shackles. Aurius' powerful metal arms beat over and over again at the chains holding him fast to the wall even as he felt the walls and barriers within his own mind start to collapse.

_He had tried to forget. He had tried so hard to forget. At night he curled up like a frightened mouse, shivering awake for hours before exhaustion finally took him and the nightmares came. _

It was barely a few metres between me and the writhing magos, but it felt like a great distance.

_With every piece of the true flesh they bolted to his spine, he took one step more away from that frail humanity that had only brought him sickness and horror. He felt reborn, wrested free from his cage of flesh and granted the sacred reprieve of ice and metal. _

Theo's eyes and hands burned now, luminous with the witch-light of the warp. He extended his left hand towards me while his right was still wrapped around Aurius' neck.

_He felt nothing but contempt for them now; they were but flesh, beneath consideration, beneath mercy. The loyal slave learns to love the lash. They were just meat and bone. Tinder for the fire of his experiments. _

I realised, almost absently, that Aurius had stopped screaming. The mad spasming of his limbs was starting to die down. His head still faced me, but the red hate in his eyes seemed almost vacant. Theo's hand grasped my forehead and I was yanked forwards into the depths of the magos' mind.

_He had admired them for their reckless audacity in the pursuit of science and technology. They had stolen the knowledge of the Astartes from the Mechanicus, knowledge that was both sacred and profane, and sought to wield it for their own ends. _

_Swimming through the depths of Aurius' fragmented mind, I caught glimpses of the other facilities on Idira – ancient, forgotten places that had been dormant for many thousands of years before the Protectorate of Nyria had reclaimed Idira from the darkness. Aurius had visited them each in turn, venturing deep into these old, decaying tombs in search of sacred knowledge. _

_And he had found it. _

_I found myself tugged along by Theo's inexorable will through the skeins of Aurius tangled memories as he tore out pieces of the magos' now-frail psyche, discarding everything that was not of use to us. All Aurius' failed efforts, all the laboratories and hidden safehouses that had contained nothing of worth; all of that was cast aside, shredded in a matter of instants. _

_Then I saw Theo's thought-form blaze with incandescent light as it surged forth like a comet, homing in on Aurius' most treasured secrets, and I found myself dragged under into memory._

* * *

><p><em>It had taken hours to get here; they had walked for hours through decaying, abandoned tunnels on the brink of collapse, but Aurius had been certain that at the end they would find what they were looking for. <em>

_"How can you be sure that it has even been preserved, after all this time?" One of the tech-adepts in service to Aurius; from Aurius' own memories, I knew that this one was overly cautious, with too much of the orthodox doctrines left in him, but talented and promising enough not to lightly cast aside. _

_"The Protectorate believed it would be. They must know something we do not." In any case, if there was even a chance..._

_"How can they not have found it, after all this time? Would they not have been searching constantly, as we have?" _

_"Without question. But secrets – entire worlds – are lost and found time and time again, over the years. The vicissitudes of the warp tore Idira from the grasp of the Protectorate of old. And the Imperium stole it from them after that, just as they started to realise its significance." _

_"That was why they fought so hard to defend it?" _

_"Yes. The foolish Guardsmen assumed that the tenacity of their defence was due to its strategic importance, or its vast resources. Instead, it was this..." _

_So there was something here, something beyond the Astartes – something valuable and dangerous enough for Aurius to risk his life to obtain. Theo pressed forward, into the depths of memory. _

_I found myself standing in thought-form beside the magos as he stood, surrounded by his aides and Skitarii bodyguards, in the midst of an underground labyrinth of cogitator banks. The technology was like nothing I had ever seen before; row upon row of spheres suspended in the air by a combination of anti-gravity and needle-thin crystalline wires that had been spun out between them in an intricate spiral web. I wondered what pattern the web would form would make if you looked at it from above – if it would resemble the runic carvings I had seen beside the Astartes tanks. _

_It was all held perfectly still – too still, I realised. When I looked closer, I noticed that even individual motes of dust, lit up by a few distant, faint sources of light, were completely frozen. Stasis fields... radically advanced, lost technology beyond all but the wisest and most learned arch-magos of the Mechanicus. And everything here was kept secure under the aegis of the largest stasis field I had ever seen. What could be so valuable that it would be worth this much protection? _

_Aurius stood at the centre of it all, by an empty pedestal made of stone. It seemed incredibly out of place amidst all this high technology. _

_"Is this the wisest course, my lord? To awaken the machine spirits of this place, after they have been dormant for so long?" _

_"It is the only course." Aurius sounded so secure in his conviction. I wondered what made him so certain. "I have not come so far to tremble at this last obstacle in my path." _

_Aurius reached into his robes and retrieved a little white sphere - the shade of bone; perhaps as large as my closed fist, and perfectly smooth – and placed it upon the stone pedestal. I had the sense that he had just done something momentous – an echo of Aurius' own sentiments at the time, I presumed. _

_There was a faint shudder as the facility came back to life; a thousand tiny machine spirits stirred in the darkness as the stasis fields collapsed one by one to rouse them from their slumber. _

_Motes of emerald light began to gather around the tiny sphere; it rose a few inches from the pedestal and hovered in the air; it span, then shattered into fragments of prismatic light that vanished into the labyrinth. _

_Then a figure appeared above the pedestal, taking the place of the sphere. It was composed entirely of light; I could see tiny letters and runic configurations running across the surface of its luminous emerald skin. It was vaguely humanoid, with a hooded, shrouded face and a slender frame adorned in simple, unmarked robes. _

_"Greetings." It said, with a clear, resonant voice that came from the walls themselves. The floor shook with the vibration of its words. I realised with a start that this was not some monster that simply seemed to fill the surrounding space with its unnatural presence; it was speaking directly through projectors embedded in the walls. _

_I suddenly knew exactly what it was that Aurius had found in those forsaken depths. _

_"According to my records, this facility has been inactive since..." It paused. Looked around, almost startled. _

_"I have been asleep for over nine thousand years." It said, sounding almost... fearful? "Who are you? What is going on?" _

_"Your former masters are dead." Aurius told it. "You were abandoned here after the fall of Idira during the Great Crusade. The successor state to the old Protectorate of Idira, now under Nyria, has long been searching for you. I found you first." He said the latter with no small amount of pride. _

_The figure of light then turned its attention away from its surroundings and locked it firmly upon Aurius. _

_"Agents of the Crusade." All the emotion in its voice had faded away; it spoke in a dull monotone that betrayed nothing. "Why have you awakened me? Are you servants of the old magos?" _

_Old magos? _

_"I have no master." Aurius said. "I am here because you are the last of your kind." _

_"What is that, Nathan?" Theo's thoughts in my mind. He sounded as afraid as I was. "What has Aurius done?" _

_Aurius had found something that had not been seen by human eyes since before the Emperor's ascension from darkness, since the final days of the Dark Age of Technology itself. _

_"That's a thinking machine." I told him. _

_An abominable intelligence. _

_And Aurius had woken it up. _


	12. Of Gods and Legends

_The _Wayfarer_, _

_Idiran Orbit, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

"An artificial intelligence?" Lina asked in disbelief. "Is that even possible?"

"It's _possible_." Emelia answered slowly, then looked at me. There was a lot of weight in that one word; even Emelia felt uncomfortable with the idea that such a thing could still exist. "Could it have been anything else?"

"It's the best fit." I said simply. We had to attend to reality, no matter how unpleasant.

"With what Theo and I saw in Aurius's mind. Stasis fields, and an underground vault filled with high technology. It spoke using the projectors in the walls, and you wouldn't need stasis fields to contain a daemon."

"Nor would they suffice for such a purpose to begin with." Theo added from beside me, arms folded. "Nathaniel is right. An abominable intelligence is the most likely answer."

We had all gathered in the briefing room to discuss recent events – and our next move. I had gathered all of my closest friends and allies to offer their thoughts, but ultimately the decision would be mine alone.

"What does this mean for us?" Alina asked. "What could it – something like that – do? How dangerous could it be?"

"We don't know." I admitted. "There's no way _to_ know. Anyone who could have answered that question has been long dead for centuries now."

More than that; a true artificial intelligence hadn't been seen in millennia – tens of millennia, even. They were myths, old legends from the Dark Ages of Technology. They were supposed to be long gone; were it not for the Mechanicus' unceasing – and occasionally extremely public – vigilance against the threat of emergent synthetic intelligence, one could be forgiven for wondering whether they had ever existed at all. Even so, this was ancient history.

You heard phantom tales of machine spirits run rampant, vague, always unsubstantiated whispers of thinking machines out beyond the Halo Stars, or the occasional apocryphal tale of cogitators and servitors acting in strange, inexplicable ways that occasionally an eccentric magos might attribute to murmurs of AI, but... you never expected to see one yourself. You never expected to find yourself _dealing_ with one.

"So what do we do?" Alina asked, her voice just above a whisper. I sympathised; a noble girl from House Nivalis on Aretas, I don't think she ever expected to find herself entangled in events like this. I was an Inquisitor from the Ordo Hereticus, and even I felt out of my depth.

"We go after it." I said. "What else can we do? If there is an AI here, and Aurius woke it up, then we need to find it before Aurius's surviving followers can do whatever it is they're intending to do with it."

"Any notion as to what that might be?" Emelia asked.

"Too many." I said. "Without more information as to what an artificial sentience might be capable of, there's no way to be sure."

"And what about Aurius himself?" Alina asked, still sounding nervous. I understood why – it was a thin line we were towing here, keeping Aurius alive down in the holding cells. The damage Theo had done to the magos's mind with his telepathic invasion was likely to be permanent – he had been neither gentle nor subtle, and I had not asked him to be. Nor had I requested that he attempt to repair the damage he had done after the fact.

When Theo and I had walked out of the interrogation room, we had left a broken wreck of a man behind us, drooling and spitting disjointed invectives at us through blood-flecked teeth. A few trusted men – who could be counted upon to keep their silence, even to the grave – had moved him, out of sight of the rest of the ship's crew. They had all been vetted for loyalty, but the Mechanicus had eyes everywhere – with matters such as this, there is no such thing as too much caution. Operational paranoia is the first thing you learn in the Inquisition.

"We keep him alive until I can be certain there is nothing left in his mind that might be of use to us. Then we send him to the Emperor."

* * *

><p>"You didn't say, you know." Emelia said thoughtfully, laying her newly-polished shotgun on the table to rest alongside her autorifle and collection of knives.<p>

"What didn't I say?"

"What you intend to do with the AI if we find it." She said, tone inquisitive.

"You don't think it's obvious?" I asked her, keeping mine neutral.

"If you were any other Inquisitor, maybe it would be." She allowed, picking up an oversized revolver that looked far too massive for her slender hands. "But you're not. You're _you_."

"Meaning?" I inquired.

"You're... _different_." She said finally, sounding discontent with that word. I arched an eyebrow at her. She frowned and shrugged. "The Imperium's full up of powerful people, and every last one of them promised to serve the Emperor until their dying breath. To do whatever it takes to save humanity from everything that's out there."

I nodded and said nothing, letting her continue.

"But most people aren't really like that." She shrugged again. "That selfless, I mean. Really willing to go out there and _die_ for a cause. And of the ones that are..." She trailed off, and her gaze grew distant.

"Did I ever tell you I was on Pandora?" She said after a while.

I shook my head. We had never really talked much about our respective pasts – when you come to the Inquisition, more often than not you leave everything of your old life behind you. I had always been curious, certainly – just as she was about me – but out of respect for her privacy, I had never asked.

But I knew the name _Pandora_. Most Inquisitors – and indeed, most commanders in the Guard – knew it, at least offhand. It was the site of the bloodiest, most comprehensive defeat the Imperium had suffered in recent memory.

"I was with the Tacitine Crusade for the last few years before I met you. I was... elsewhere, at the start, but I was there for the closing battles of the war. When we crushed the Chaos fleets over Merhalt; when we set fire to a dozen tainted worlds and drove the rest of them screaming back to the Eye."

She smiled at that. I joined her; it had been glorious. I had never been there, but the news of the Crusade's triumph had spread across the entire Imperium. They had liberated a thousand worlds from the Despoiler, reclaimed an entire sector. They had almost succeeded in forcing him to turn back in his frantic efforts to reach Holy Terra. Almost.

"Then we stumbled across Pandora. We hadn't named it then; everyone just saw a paradise, untouched by the war. As far as we knew the heretics had never even set foot upon its surface. The Lord Commander said it was a miracle, a gift from the Emperor. A paradise to reward us for all the blood we'd spilled."

She sighed heavily.

"I was with one of the first search teams who went down; guarding one of the Magos Biologis who went to examine the planet's atmosphere, native life, all that kind of thing. I still remember waking up, hearing him ranting and raving about discoveries he had found – the atmosphere, he said, it was completely clean. No dangerous parasites in the air, no harmful bacteria, nothing."

"Eventually, he found out why – there were tiny machines in the air, billions of them, all constantly working to keep the place a perfect, untouched paradise. It was... technology we couldn't even fathom, he said. A miracle of science and knowledge that was so incredibly beyond us that we could never replicate it if we had a thousand years to try."

"The Eldar." I said quietly.

"Yes." She replied, her voice just as soft. "We got the warning a few days later. A pre-recorded message warning us to stay away, or else..." She waved a hand. We both knew what came next.

"It was _hell_, Nathan." She said, sounding ashen. I had only heard second-hand accounts of the war on Pandora; I cannot imagine what it must have been like to fight in it. Or to be one of the lost handful of souls who had walked away from it.

"The Lord Commander refused to leave." I supplied.

"Of course he did." She said bitterly. "The idea we would simply walk away from a prize like that, it was... it was like madness to them. I don't know if they thought the Eldar were bluffing, if they thought the message was so ancient that they wouldn't even know we were here..."

She swallowed, trying to keep her voice steady.

"We had them outnumbered better than ten to one in the air. More than five times that on the ground. It didn't matter. They're so far beyond us that it just didn't matter."

I knew something of Eldar military-grade technology. I considered myself fortunate that I had never been forced to face them as enemies.

"Our sensors were useless; we could could barely pick up their strike forces when they were right on top of us, let alone in time to ever give us any warning. It was like fighting ghosts; we'd be ordered on missions to assault positions that had been abandoned hours before, and we'd walk right into fields made up of _invisible mines_. They knew what we were going to do before _we_ did."

She returned her revolver to the table and sighed again, trying to breathe out her frustration.

"And then when we did get them to meet us... imagine guns that go through a dozen men like they're not even there. One second you're standing there, and the next, just... meat, and blood, people screaming. Lasers that can kill a tank in one shot and _never stop firing_."

"Troop transports that can _fly_, Emperor's sake... every one of them throwing off a dozen mirror-images that all of your sensors will swear blind are real. Even when you hit them they've got a force field that can shrug off a cannon."

"But they wouldn't back down. Kept sending us into the grinder to be slaughtered. I don't even think it occurred to them that we really might _lose." _

"Then it seemed like High Command had all gone mad; we started receiving orders that made no sense, followed by instructions to disregard the previous orders, then contradictory instructions... supply shipments would go missing, or wind up in the wrong place, or just blow up when they arrived. It might have been funny if it hadn't been so Emperor-damned terrifying. It seemed like the world had gone crazy, only we were left stuck in the middle of it with no way to get out."

"They'd infiltrated High Command."

"Yeah." She said. "Yeah, they had. We figured it out too late – you have to understand, even if it seems obvious now, it wasn't something any of us wanted to even _think_ about at the time. It would have meant that we were well and truly beyond saving – that there wasn't anything we could do."

"How'd they do it?" I asked.

"Some of it was dummy transmissions – they worked out our command structure, started interfering with all our communications to send false orders. And some of it... some of it was just some eldar witch half a continent away reaching into a commander's mind, making him send a division out into the middle of nowhere to be cut off and massacred."

"Eventually some of them – some of the commanders who were left – figured out that the eldar were fighting to try and defend some temple in the middle of the forest. No idea how they learned that, or why. But they scrambled everything – Guard, Templars, even most of a Titan Legion – to try and destroy it, or capture it. I don't know – they never told me. I think some of them were desperate enough to believe that they could force the eldar to run, even then. Seize Pandora as some great prize at the end of it all."

"What happened?"

"The eldar had one last trick they had left – some monster of theirs they'd held back until then. I don't know what it was – only that nothing we had seemed to hurt it. I saw a Titan unload a plasma blastgun right at it – turned everything to ash for a mile around – and it came right out the other side, just yelling. It didn't even have a scratch on it; I think we just made it angry more than anything else. That we even had the _audacity_ to try and kill it. Then it threw a spear – this massive, wailing spear – that flew right through the void shields into the Titan's heart. Killed the princeps where he stood, with just one throw."

Emelia fell silent after that.

"I have no idea what kind of daemon or monster they summoned, or... I just hope never to have to face something like that again."

Something must have come through in my expression, because Emelia suddenly looked sharply at me and asked.

"What is it?"

"Nothing." I offered instinctively – too hastily, in fact, because Emelia jumped on it.

"Tell me. You know something, don't you? Something you're not supposed to."

I weighed whether or not to answer her – I could tell her that it was a matter of which I could not speak, but that would not, strictly speaking, be true. I had never been forbidden – even asked, really – not to tell anyone the things that I knew. It was not something to be shared freely – even amongst friends – but Emelia had saved my life half a dozen times, and I had saved hers. Did I not owe her at least the few answers I could give, no matter how little it would help?

"I do." I said carefully. "I can tell you, if you wish. I don't know that it will mean anything, or help, but I can share what I know."

She nodded.

"I'd like to know; whatever you can tell me. If nothing else, being a little less ignorant might help me sleep a little better at night."

I nodded back.

"If you wish."

"The eldar believe the creature you saw to be the living incarnation of one of their gods."

"A god? They think that thing is a _god?"_

"Yes. Specifically, some small piece of his essence they can summon forth in times of great need. To inspire them, to lead them – to slay their enemies on the battlefield."

"Does it have a name? What do they call it?"

"Yes. The eldar know him as Khaine the Bloody-Handed; _Kaela Mensha Khaine,_ in their language."

"Wait - you speak Eldar?"

I chuckled at that.

"No. It's too complex for an outsider to ever really learn it; I know a few words and phrases, that's all."

That wasn't strictly true; I knew a little more than that, though certainly not enough to ever passably imitate one of their kind. The language was replete with hidden meanings and subtle references to old Eldar legends and myths, most of which I was ignorant of.

"Who taught you?"

"A friend."

"An eldar?"

Now _I _was the one looking at _her_ sharply.

"Why would you think that?"

She shrugged and gave me a smile that was all faux innocence.

"Who else _could_ teach you? Who speaks eldar but the eldar?" Then she grinned. "And you, it seems."

"That doesn't bother you?"

"That you can speak Eldar?" She shrugged. "If it was someone else, someone I didn't know, perhaps it would. But I trust you."

She looked at me intently, suddenly curious.

"How much _do_ you know about them?"

"Perhaps more than any man alive." I admitted quietly. I felt like I was admitting something both great and terrible – and, perhaps, I was. To know so much about an alien species, depending on who you asked, was indicative of unhealthy curiosity or borderline heresy.

She looked as if she had a thousand questions, but she settled on just the one.

"How? Where did you learn it?"

"You were right; one of them taught me."

"Why?"

"Because I asked him to."

She frowned in near-disbelief.

"Just like that? You asked him, and he taught you?"

I chuckled.

"Something like that."

"And he was your friend? An _eldar?"_

"Yes. He was my friend. Is my friend, I think, though it has been many years. Not so long for him, I suppose. A few decades isn't a long time for one of the Children."

"'The Children'?"

I smiled.

"His turn of phrase, not mine."

"The children of who? Or what, I suppose?"

"Depends who you ask. My teacher believed that the eldar are the mortal children of an old goddess, doomed to wander this world forever apart from her."

"And what do you believe?"

"I don't know. I've seen too many things to discount the possibility."

"But... mortal children of a goddess? Summoning a god of war to fight battle Titans? It all seems a little..."

"Fantastic?" I offered. "Is it really so hard to believe, after everything we've both seen?"

"Yes!" She laughed. "It can be. Believing in daemons is one thing; we've both seen them. But believing in gods is..."

"You believe in the God-Emperor." I pointed out, not unkindly.

"Of course I do." She said. "But it's one thing to have _faith_, and another to... to see these things up close, to walk amongst them. To _fight_ them."

That was it, really. It was one thing to have faith in the God-Emperor from afar; to believe in angels and daemons and monsters and gods. It was another to see one made manifest, and Emelia had – she had seen the Avatar of Khaine stride onto the battlefield and drive the forces of the Imperium before it.

"Like I said." Emelia said. "You're different. You're not a puritan, but you're..." She paused, searching for the right words. "A different kind of radical, I think."

_A different kind of radical. _

I could live with that.


	13. The Calm before Storms

_The _Wayfarer_, _

_Idiran Orbit, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

It is a common saying in the Inquisition that knowledge is power. I have never entirely believed that. If there is anything that my experiences have taught me, it is that power is frequently simply a matter of _context_.

In a room filled with a dozen wise men and a single swordsman, it is the latter who holds the power – he alone can make the choice of whether to bestow life or death upon the others. In a different context, the right words can sway a thousand swordsmen – drive armoured divisions to war upon the blasted plains of our dark millennium. Just the right amount of faith, so the Ministorum says, can overturn a galaxy – and _will_ overturn this one.

For it was upon this singular foundation that the Imperium was built – the idea that fire, faith and Mankind's own indomitable will could be enough to conquer the galaxy.

At times like this, I start to wonder.

Ellana sits in the centre of the room, feet bare, legs crossed, red hair bright against black robes. She looks at peace.

"One rogue psyker to train another, my friend?" Theo asks me. His voice, a deep baritone, resonates in the narrow confines of the chamber. I look askance at my friend, who is looking down at me with an expression of mild amusement. Theo is tall, handsome, barrel-chested and confident. Adorned in a knee-length, exquisitely-tailored scarlet coat, he carries himself precisely like the pirate captain he once was.

Around his neck are several amulets made from precious metals, some with symbols and images I recognise, and many others that are alien to me. The right side of his face is studded with sparkling diamonds that shine in the light against his dark skin; he looks like a traveller from far away, someone who has wandered the furthest expanses of the galaxy and returned to tell the stories.

Comparatively, I looked positively unremarkable – average height, my build verging towards the unhealthily slender owing to my recent injuries and subsequent confinement to the infirmary. Theo's wry smile at my attire – plain, stark black robes – tells me precisely what he thinks of my refusal to adorn myself in any way that might possibly ameliorate the appearance of my presently corpse-like complexion.

I had rejected Alina's suggestion to sprawl out under a sun-globe – common practice in the lower parts of many hive worlds, where habitats and dwellings are so far down and the air is so polluted that sunlight can no longer reach you – on the grounds that I simply had far too many things to attend to.

"She needs a better teacher than the Telepathica can provide." I said, my own voice coming out like a thin rasp. I made a mental note to eat something with actual substance when I had the time.

Theo gave me a glistening smile that was all practised charm.

"You would sooner trust to rogues than the honoured scribes and instructors of the Adeptus?"

I made a noncommittal sound of vague irritation.

"The Adeptus does what it knows how to do. It doesn't know how to train psykers like her. Not the way I need her to be."

Theo's smile remained.

"And you need her to be _spectacular_. Just like all the others you have gathered to your side."

I arched a quizzical eyebrow at him.

"Do not think I have not noticed, my friend. You have an eye for the exceptional. The knight, your ogryn, that soldier girl..."

"She has a name, you know. So does the ogryn." I pointed out in mock contention. Theo meant no disrespect; he seldom did.

"And so does the knight." Theo responded knowingly, smile still quite intact.

"Sometimes I think he's happier being thought of as a sword rather than a man."

Theo's expression turned sombre and he looked away from me.

"He has lost everything. And what more can a man do when that happens? Perhaps it is easier for him to think of himself as nothing more than the edge of a blade; sharp, flawless, made for killing and little else."

"You sound like you know something about that." I observed.

"Nathan, my friend, I have lived a great many years. If I had learned nothing of loss in all that time, I would have lived a rather poor life, would you not agree?"

He didn't look any older than perhaps thirty; much like I looked about half of my forty-two years, Theo only looked a fraction of his true age. He had never told me exactly how old that was, of course – old pirates had to keep their mysteries.

"I would. That's why I wanted you to be the one to train her." I said. "You've seen things the Telepathica hasn't; been to places they would never go."

"I could tell you where you could see the most spectacular violet sunrise on a thousand worlds, or where to find delicacies that would make you weep..." He had that far-off look in his eyes; the look of a man who had truly _lived _his experiences, and had made sure to cherish every moment. "I do not know that I can tell a goddess how to be one."

"A goddess?" One side of my lips quirked.

Theo shrugged his massive shoulders.

"She has power I cannot even guess at, my friend. For someone like me, it is an effort, always; it is like seizing a molten river and throttling it to where I wish it to go."

"And for someone like her, it will be as if she _is_ the river." I finished.

"Yes." Theo agreed with a nod. "She will always have one foot in this world, and one in the other. She will read a mind as easily as you or I could read a book; call things to her from across the room, across cities or worlds. I do not know if I can train that."

"The eldar do." I said quietly. _Yes, and even for them it is a perilous road, flirting always with damnation. Even Tylian feared to walk the Path of the Seer. _

"Aye, they do." Theo agreed. "That proves only that it can be done; I will do my best, of course, but I am both old and wise enough to know that it will be a difficult road."

He looked contemplatively at Ellana.

"It will not be easy for her, Nathan. You may have spared her life, but what lies beyond will never stop trying to take her soul. And I speak only from what I have known; for her it will be far worse. You may not have done her a kindness in bringing her here."

"I know." I replied.

"I can teach her what I know of my own discipline," Theo told me. "As for the rest, I do not know how much help I can be."

"The rest?"

"Her telekinesis, and the mastery of fire... the latter, especially, I cannot help her with."

"She's a pyrokine?"

Theo smiled again.

"You did not know? It is not uncommon; I would be more surprised if she did _not_ have that particular gift."

I raised my eyebrows, surprised.

"It is the most common," he explained. "They say that the discipline of flame is the easiest to learn, but the hardest to control." He told me. "I cannot, naturally, answer if that is true." He added, sounding almost apologetic.

"Who is Tylian?" Ellana interrupted suddenly, her voice high and clear. I turned sharply to look at her. She had not moved; her eyes were still closed, but there seemed a little more tension in her than there was before as she listened in. I looked at Theo, frowning. He, however, seemed more amused than concerned.

"You had better answer her, my friend."

I glared at him and headed out from the alcove where Theo and I were talking. We were in a kind of meditation chamber; at least, I could not imagine what else this room might have been used for. The walls were brown stone that had been carefully laid over the metal bones of the ship; it was quiet here, insulated from all the noise and perpetual, distant humming that characterised starship life. Voices had a tendency to echo here, too.

As did thoughts, it seemed, where Ellana was concerned.

I closed the distance between she and I, my bare feet barely making a sound as I approached. I sat down in front of her, mirroring her stance and posture. Then she opened her eyes to look at me, their bright green gazing intently into mine without fear.

"Who was he?" She asked again, curious. "You seem sad when you think of him."

I was about to answer that this was not true, that I had moved past that sadness a long time ago, but then all of a sudden I could _feel_ it, as if some buried lock had been snapped off somewhere in my mind and I could sense my friend's absence like something _tangible_ and palpable and all too painful deep inside me.

I thought that perhaps _she_ had somehow done this; plucked the emotion from somewhere so deep that I wasn't even aware of it, and drew it to the surface by some act of will. More likely, I thought, that she was not even aware of it all. That it had not even been _conscious_; she had just sensed it and somehow made _me_ sense it, too.

I was about to be angry with her, but then a thousand memories came rushing to the surface, unbidden – all his old lessons, everything he had taught me, all the stories he had told, coming back just like it was yesterday... it was almost like having my friend next to me again, smiling that rare smile of his that was full of unbridled joy and pride and the wild rush of simply being _alive_.

When I looked back at Ellana, her eyes were wide and frightened; I knew instantly that she could feel everything I did as keenly as if they were her own emotions. That painful absence of a distant, beloved friend who you might never see again. For a child, I thought, it must have been almost overwhelming.

"He was my friend." I told her. "And my teacher."

"He saved you, didn't he?" She asked, her voice shaky with my own reflected sorrow.

"Yes," I replied, startled. _Just how well can she read me? _

She chuckled slightly, all innocence and wry amusement.

"Pretty well," she answered, blinking away a few tears with a touch of mischief in her voice. She wiped absently at her eyes with a sleeve.

"Sometimes," she added, frowning. "It's difficult. You feel more... _open_ right now, but other times I can hardly feel you there at all."

"How often do you look for me?" I asked.

"All the time." She replied honestly. "You saved me." She said that as if it answered everything.

"How did he save you?" She asked. I was about to answer, but then it occurred to me that I could do something else – I could _show_ her. So I turned my thoughts inward and waded through the memories Ellana had inadvertently brought so close to the surface just moments ago.

_I was sprawled on the ground, leg broken and useless and pinned under me. I watched the sword descend through the mist towards me with panicked horror; I was so young, I was so afraid to die – I couldn't bear for it to end like this, trapped and alone and hacked apart like meat by some madman who would laugh and shout in triumph as he split my skull open – so I screwed my eyes shut and tried to cover my face with my blood-covered arms in a futile attempt to defend myself. _

_Tylian came and saved me, yelling something in eldar as his glowing spear cleaved through the mist like some hero of old. He closed the distance between us – easily more than a dozen metres – in less than a second and flicked out the tip of his spear with inhuman grace to slash out the throat of my would-be killer. He looked down at me, not saying anything – he just gave me a slight nod and then turned away. _

_I saw other men rush through the mist towards him – the mist hissed and crackled as tiny droplets of moisture turned to vapour as they brushed the burning tip of his force spear. He twirled it in his hands with effortless poise, as if he were just warming up; they rushed him all at once, trying to take advantage of their numbers, but none of them could touch him. He span and whirled and killed them all to save me; he buried his spear in the chest of one man and then spun to deliver a kick that cracked ribs and sent his enemy flying off his feet. _

_I saw him whip the flat of his hand through the air like a knife to crush a man's windpipe with a single blow; he pulled a knife from his back, sidestepped the swing of a whirring chainaxe with contemptuous ease, slashed a throat and shoved the screaming man to the dirt with a single flick of his wrist before hurling his blade dead into the eyes of another target I couldn't even see. Then he looked around as silence fell, and nodded to himself. _

_Then he tugged me up as if I weighed nothing, slung me over his shoulder, and carried me to safety. _

Ellana gasped, clutching at my arm for balance, overwhelmed for a moment by the intensity of the memory. I was worried for a moment, thinking that perhaps I had made a mistake in showing her, but she composed herself quickly and looked at me with curious eyes.

"He wasn't human, was he?"

"No." I replied, wondering what she would make of that. She perhaps wasn't old enough to quite fathom the depths of humanity's antipathy for the vast majority of alien races that shared the stars with us, but every child at least would know that familiarity with xenos was to be avoided, always.

Of course, this prohibition had been tossed by the wayside a great many times, when it had been convenient; it was fairly common for desperate commanders or rogue traders on the edge of space to make use of Ork mercenaries, and the warriors of Altansar and Ulthwé were practically a welcome sight now whenever they sallied forth from the webway against the Black Legion.

"What was he?" She asked.

"He was – is – an eldar."

She frowned and her brow wrinkled. Evidently she hadn't heard the name before; this wasn't surprising. Every child knew what an ork was; stories of greenskin brutality were told around campfires and occasionally used as cautionary tales across the Imperium. They were a convenient savage, the perennial monster under the bridge used to frighten unruly children.

The eldar were different; mysterious and seldom seem, they would appear from nowhere, accomplish some inscrutable goal, and then vanish as swiftly as they arrived. Armed with prescience and technology so strikingly advanced it was virtually magic, the eldar were a reminder of the lingering few elder races in the galaxy that were so far beyond us that we must seem like fumbling infants to them. It was not a reality that a great many of us in the Imperium were willing or happy to confront.

"What's an eldar?"

I could simply list off a list of the biological distinctions between our species, I supposed, but I suspected that was not what she was looking for. Nor, I suspected, would such a description mean very much to a twelve year old girl.

"They used to rule the galaxy before we came. A long, long time ago." I settled on that.

"How?"

"With starships and weapons, I suppose." I said. "And they were like you."

"Like me? All of them?" Her eyes were wide, fascination written across her face.

"Yes. Every last one."

"What happened to them?" She asked.

"That, I'm afraid," I said to her, "is a story for another time."

"But-" she began, but I shook my head firmly.

"There are some things that it's dangerous to know too much about," I explained. "Even knowledge can be a weapon, in the right hands. And there are some things that, once you've learned them, you can never unlearn. Once you see them, they're in your mind – in your soul – forever. And you're not ready for this yet."

Something so simple as playing the role of a goddess in a play can take your soul away. I knew that; when I was younger, I had questioned how something so simple as knowing something could possibly hurt you. How just speaking a word aloud could change anything. It was just knowledge, wasn't it – just ripples of sound in the air?

Then I had met and seen people who had been damned by such things – people who had done things so simple as reading a book filled with profane knowledge, or spoke words aloud that they should not have. It was the stuff of magic, and madness, and the realm of gods and daemons. It was that simple; even I would not dare speak the name of the Thirsting Goddess aloud, for fear of what it might invite. The ways of gods are not that of men, and we are right to be afraid.

Ellana, to her credit, didn't pry. I think perhaps she trusted me enough to know that I was not simply an adult telling a child that she would understand when she was older; that some things ought to be kept aside and not spoken of. I wondered if she could even sense it; Tylian had spoken once of what it felt like to wield power as one of his kind.

It was like balancing upon a tightrope, he said, blindfolded and afraid and yet knowing that a great, yawning maw waited beneath you – and if you made even the slightest misstep, the slightest miscalculation... if you faltered but once, it would take you. There were reasons few of his kind ever walked the witch path, no matter that it was their birthright.

"One day?" She asked.

"One day." I agreed. "Now I have things to see to."

She was about to protest, but I cut her off.

"We've kept Theo waiting long enough. And there are things you do need to learn, after all."

Despite my insistence that I had to leave, I stayed a while longer – watched Theo take her through a few basic exercises. Levitating pebbles in the air and keeping them steady, and a game played by telepaths called find the thought. Ellana proved to be quite adept at the latter, but not quite so at the former – she tended to put a bit too much power into things. I saw more than a few pebbles simply explode as she caught them in her telekinetic grip.

After a while, I left; I wasn't a psyker, and had little to offer. And Ellana kept looking my way, a curious look in her eye. Rather than distract them both, I departed to attend to other matters.

* * *

><p>"Where are we on the flight recorder?" I asked Alina. She threw her hands up in despair.<p>

"Nowhere." She said. "Nowhere at all. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the tech-adepts were deliberately dragging their heels."

I frowned. That could even be true; their token measure of protest at being forced to break into the personal equipment of a senior magos. Especially a magos that I had personally executed for heresy – that was the story we had settled on, in the end. Less people would come looking for a dead man; and he was still safely under lock and key, guarded by a pair of soldiers sworn to utter secrecy.

I knew there would be consequences for what I'd done in the end – even simply executing a magos without trial would have ramifications down the line – but as long as I did not have to face them now, when there was so much work yet to be done...

Aurius had a personal aircraft that he'd used to fly in to reach the Spire on the night of the attack – with the magos himself dead and his Tech Guards slaughtered at our hands, it had been left idling a few blocks south of the city centre. The Imperial Guard had been unwilling to touch it, partially due to the array of combat servitors that had been assigned to keep it secure. The servitors, for their part, had simply maintained a silent vigil until we had arrived.

The servitors had played back a recording Aurius had left that declared the vehicle property of the Mechanicus and that any trespass would be punished severely. Naturally, I then commanded my Storm Trooper detachment to secure the vessel anyway – it was not overly difficult, given that the servitors had been standing out in the open - and then had it brought up to my ship away from prying eyes. If any of the local Guard commanders objected to my conduct, they kept it to themselves.

Perhaps they wisely came to the conclusion that they were better off leaving the Inquisition and the Mechanicus to deal with each other.

Acting on the assumption that Aurius had likely come from whatever base of operations he had established here on Idira – the Imperial Guard officials I had spoken to about the matter had known nothing – I now had my own tech-adepts working on breaking the security on the flyer's flight recorder, so we could follow it back to its point of origin. But even they had been Mechanicus-trained, and owed much of their loyalty to that Adeptus.

"Such is the curse of having all of our knowledge in the hands of one organisation, I suppose." Lina sighed. "Nobody can move without their say-so, and if they want to keep something secret, who can argue?"

"Hmm." I wondered.

"What?" She asked. "I know that expression."

"I'm just wondering if there might be someone else who can help us."

"A tech-adept outside of the Mechanicus, you mean?"

I nodded.

"The Mechanicus and the Ministorum don't get along at the best of times; it's why you see the Templars using the old Malcador and Vandire-pattern tanks instead ofLeman Russes. Why they scarcely have a Baneblade for every dozen armoured divisions; the Mechanicus hates provisioning them with anything it considers particularly sacred."

"Why?"

"Religious and political differences, mostly. The Ecclesiarchy hates having to scrape and bow before the Mechanicus for their technological needs, and the Mechanicus knows it. In turn, the Ministorum resents the Machine Cult for how powerful it's become, and given that as far as the priests are concerned, the Cult of Mars is practically a foreign religion..."

"They'd rather they be the ones holding the leash." Lina surmised.

"Just like every Adeptus, especially these days. All of them want more power, and most of them are willing to scramble over the others to get it."

"So you think the Ecclesiarchy can help us?"

"Maybe. It's a possibility; the Mechanicus considers any tech-adepts they didn't train to be hereteks, but since it's not heresy as far as the Imperial Cult is concerned..."

"The Ecclesiarchy harbours them to maintain a stable of trained adepts independent of Mechanicus control." Lina finished.

"Exactly."

"And the Mechanicus stands for this?"

I shrugged.

"Most of the time they can't prove it, and the Ministorum would never be foolish enough to admit it openly. It tends to be less of an institution-wide policy and more something handled by individual Bishops and Templar commanders, in any case."

"Plausible deniability." She said.

"Quite so." I agreed. "And it means they can offer up bishops or templars they're not happy with as sacrifices if they're ever backed into a corner."

She then arched an eyebrow at me.

"So what's your plan? You intend to find the Idiran pontifex and ask him if you can borrow his heretics?"

I chuckled.

"He may or may not have hereteks to borrow." I admitted. "If he or she does... an inquisitor who owes you a favour is always valuable, even for someone of his stature. And if I offer to tell him what the Mechanicus was doing here, why I killed Aurius..."

"The Ministorum can hold that over the Mechanicus' heads later on. Not a bad plan."

"How likely do you think it is that he'll have someone?"

I considered.

"Very." I said. "Idira was covered in scientists and adepts, most of them probably didn't make it off-world when the planet fell. It's likely that most of them went into hiding, knowing what would be in store for them if the Mechanicus discovered them. More than a few probably fell into the Ministorum's pocket – more than that if they actively recruited."

Something else to consider was, frankly, that having the backing of the local Ecclesiarchy would go a long way towards securing my position.

The local Templar garrison had yet to engage the Idiran rebellion at all; instead, they had elected to preserve their strength, fortify their positions, and reach out to the local faithful to gather up the Frateris Militia. Given that it was Idira, they likely had less volunteers than they might elsewhere, but even a fraction of the populace of a city the size of Kerrida was... a substantial force, if the Templars had the weapons to arm them.

Considering the massive wealth of the Ecclesiarchy, it was a safe bet that they did. The Templars frequently suffered from a lack of high technology, that was true – but they also had an overabundance of basic weaponry – lasguns, flamers and the like - that invariably found its way into the hands of local partisans in times of crisis.

If my own tech-adepts could not – or would not – get the job done, it was time to look elsewhere.

It was time to pay the Pontifes a visit, and hope he was feeling charitable.


	14. In the House of the Emperor

_The Chapel, Kerrida, _

_Idira, Sub-Sector Auriga, Ultima Segmentum_

_942.M41_

Ironic that I would come to the house of the Emperor in search of heretics.

More curious still that I would be seeking for their _aid_ rather than to string them up to be executed. Desperate times. Needs must.

The arcane, alien religion of the tech-priests was not mine – their heresy was not _my_ heresy – but even so, it felt like crossing a line.

As far as the Mechanicus was concerned – at least, those few of them that knew of our battle at the Spire – I had already crossed it, I was sure.

The Frateris Templars stared impassively at me through the eye slits in their gold-plated masks; cherubic faces carved over the cold, hard eyes of killer fanatics. I made out the distinctive shape of flak jackets and frag grenades hidden under the flowing white cloaks that fluttered faintly in the evening breeze. Whatever their ceremonial attire, they were ready for war.

The Chapel – it lacked a more ornate name simply because it was the only one of its kind in central Kerrida – was little more than a ceramite bunker with carpet. The local Ministorum had adorned it with a silver aquila and festooned the perimeter with sandbag walls, razor wire and autoguns. A pair of _Malcador_-pattern heavy tanks idled in the courtyard.

Beyond the walls and the wire was the mob – the nascent army of the Frateris Militia; the volunteer crusaders who had answered the pontifex's call to arms.

Some priests and bishops simply dispensed the dregs from far-off hive armouries – run-down autoguns and crude rocket launchers (the latter of which were frequently little more than hollowed-out industrial tubes designed to blast shrapnel out of one end and killed the wielder as frequently as the target) – to a bloodthirsty crowd and used them as shock troops.

I noted with grim satisfaction that _this_ pontifex had dispersed elements of his Templar contingent amongst the volunteers; he had armed them like Guardsmen, and now had them running makeshift firing drills and obstacle courses through vacated streets. When the time came – and it would come – they would fight like an army. An army with no experience, to be sure – but it was infinitely better than a mob.

A pair of Templars armed with massive silver greatswords guarded the open door; there was a slow trickle of pilgrims here to attend service, even in these troubled times. I could hear a faint hymn echoing from the halls inside.

Emelia raised her eyebrows.

"Still holding services when the planet's practically in open revolt?" She observed. "Impressive."

I raised an eyebrow.

"A lot of the priests I've met would bar the doors and hunker down until trouble had passed by. Just let the templars and the sorry bastards in the PDF take care of it while you sip amasec in a comfy office somewhere." She shrugged. "Just my experience."

"He's a frontier priest." I pointed out. "They tend to be made of sterner stuff."

The frontiers tended to attract either the true believers or the occasional cynic with an eye for advancement; it was a risky endeavour, leading the charge for the faith at the edge of Imperial space. It tended to be the case that religious leaders were some of the first to die when worlds fell.

We wandered in through the bunker doors into the chapel; we were met by the glowing lights of a thousand candles. The outside might have been a bunker carved out of grey, featureless ceramite, but the interior had been transformed into something beautiful; frescoes of the Emperor and his Saints adorned the walls, interspersed with paintings and tapestries depicting some of the Imperium's most glorious wars.

There was a painting of the fall of Sareten, the greenskin hordes crushed flat beneath the anvil of the Imperial Guard. Next to it was a mural of the Ophelian War, where the fallen primarch Lorgar had sought to tear down the shrines of his father. The crusade against the tyranids that ended with the Battle of Aristes. The last stand of Lady Amana against the Nightbringer. The Siege of Terra itself, where the Blood Angels and the Sons of Horus had reduced most of the Imperial Palace to ashes.

The most cynical voices amongst us said that had been the day the Imperium died. It just had yet to realise it.

The most striking sights of all, however – enough to remind even the most doubting watcher that the Imperium was still very much alive - were the black-armoured figures flanking the priest as he stood upon the dais.

Towering and statuesque, with their armour radiant and shining with the light from hundreds of tiny fires, they stood a few steps back and to the side, hands hovering just inches from bolters and chainswords. Their eyes constantly flickered from point to point in the crowd, constantly alert for any sign of danger. They held themselves like avenging angels, ready to sweep in from the dais and the wings at a moment's notice.

"No wonder why they feel safe enough to hold sermons." Emelia muttered under her breath as we made our way towards one of the vacant rows.

"He's brought the _Sisters of Battle_ to back him up." Her voice was filled with reluctant awe.

"Don't worry, Em." I smiled down at her, sensing the source of her disquiet. "You're still the scariest woman I know."

"Thanks, boss." She replied dryly. "That _really_ makes a girl feel better."

"If you like I'm sure we can find you a bolter somewhere." I offered with a grin. "We've even got a suit of power armour."

"No thanks." She grimaced. "I _like_ not being a target, thank you very much."

"Until you start killing everything that moves." I pointed out. "They tend to notice you then."

"Better they notice me _after_ half their friends are dead," she noted grimly. "Best way to not die is not to get shot at all. I'll leave the walking tank routine to the Sororitas."

I leaned back into the pew, which was surprisingly comfortable despite being made of solid hardwood.

"How long's it been since we were in a place like this?" I wondered.

"Too long," she said, her voice wistful. "The priests did good. This can't have been here for more than a few decades, but it feels like..."

"Like it's already a piece of history?" I supplied.

"Yeah. Something like that." She nodded. "Nice to see that we're still building beautiful things _somewhere_."

"Almost makes you forget the whole Imperium's falling apart, doesn't it?" Her voice was quieter now.

It was getting harder and harder to hide from as the years drew by. How much time did we really have left?

"We're not done yet." I said firmly. Emelia looked back at me. She looked uncertain for a moment, but then she nodded and offered a faint smile.

"No. We're not done yet." She agreed.

* * *

><p>"Ah! The venerable Inquisitor Aymeric graces my humble diocese."<p>

The pontifex's eyes twinkled with amusement. It had been relatively easy to secure a private audience with him; I had simply wandered up to one of the Battle Sisters on duty and asked. Upon confirming my credentials, she had brought me to his private chambers in a little side-room. He was standing looking at one of his portraits, apparently lost in thought, when I entered.

Many priests of the Ecclesiarchy surrounded themselves with symbols of wealth and power; Asten Lathe, as he was introduced to me, had but a few. The painting depicting a pale-skinned man with shoulder-length raven hair and aquiline features. A shelf holding a few old, vintage bottles of fine amasec. A few odd trinkets. A battered, old lasgun mounted on a special rack along with a suit of flak armour that still bore the wounds of battle.

I scrutinised each of them in turn. That portrait looked familiar to me; I felt like I should know it, but it escaped me somehow.

Lathe watched me do so, appraising my appraisal of my surroundings. In all honesty, I approved. Men of the faith shouldn't live like barons, and Lathe clearly felt the same. I think he sensed that, too, because a wide smile crept across his face, honest and amused.

He would be the very picture of a kindly, gentle old man – even someone's grandfather, perhaps – were it not for the jagged scars cross-crossing his face and lower arms. He walked with a cane and held himself slightly stooped, but behind the humour and the kind eyes, I suspected, lurked a fierce intelligence that hadn't been diminished by age.

He had the kind of relaxed, fearless demeanour that you saw from men who had seen death and horror and walked out the other side intact. His smile never left his face as he sat down and made himself at ease, taking a few sips from a wooden goblet on his desk.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I'm not sure I'll be _venerable_ for at least another century yet," I remarked, taking the seat opposite him. "I need your help."

"Mm." He agreed, scrutinising my youthful features. "I forget sometimes," he noted wryly, "you Inquisitors don't quite age like the rest of us do. That you are not the boy you appear."

I looked somewhere around my early twenties; given my present state of poor health, probably slightly older.

His expression turned sharp.

"But they still chose _you _to handle Idira. The order came down from the office of the Lord Commander himself, after all. From more than a dozen senior inquisitors, who on paper all look like better choices. An untested boy to put down the revolt."

He wasn't insulting me; merely stating facts. I _was_ a boy – and there _were_ better choices.

"Have you not thought to question why?"

"More than once," I admitted. "Unfortunately, I can never seem to think of anyone who might be forthcoming with answers." An old soldier's adage came to mind. _Ours is not to question why; ours is just to do or die. _

Inquisitors were typically given free reign to seek out heresy as they pleased – but when the orders came down from on high, we jumped without question just like everyone else.

He nodded in approval and gave an indignant 'hmph' that sounded almost sympathetic.

"At least you thought to ask the question. Your Inquisition is a house built upon secrets. Easy to get tangled up in them. Sometimes the only way to get out is to _ask the right questions_."

"Do you know, then?" I asked outright. "Why I was chosen?"

He smiled.

"No." He said simply. Just as I was about to respond, he continued.

"I know why the Lord Commander acquiesced to send you here, yes. I do not think he appreciated the significance of it, or thought on it enough to care – he is too wrapped up in his grand Crusade to make his name immortal."

He _acquiesced_ to send me here?

"Who can direct the Lord Commander to do anything?" I asked immediately, suddenly on edge.

He waved a hand.

"Oh, a great many people. The High Lords of Terra, a dozen major Cardinals, the Archmagos of a forge world. As it turns out, it was none of these. Rather, a prophet whispered in his ears, and he obliged. I do not think he thought it a matter of much consequence at the time. He likely still does not."

"You're saying a prophet told him to send me here?"

He took another sip of water before replying.

"I am saying that a notable diviner renowned across the sector came to see the Lord Commander shortly before he departed to launch his Crusade. Shortly after, the order came down from the Lord Commander's office to send you to Idira. A curious coincidence, would you not agree?"

"Which one?" I felt a chill creep down my spine.

The list of prophets and diviner-psykers trusted enough to have any predictions they make taken seriously at all was not a long one. Unlike the psykers of the eldar, human witches had precious little aptitude for the discipline, and were often more likely to invite doom than sound advice. The mind of a prophet is a fragile thing, all too often warped and broken far too quickly.

Prophets and seers who could even _request_ an audience with military command, let alone be granted one, could be counted on one hand.

"The Herald of Saint Tacita."

I froze.

Perhaps a century or so ago, a hive world on the brink of crumbling had risen up in revolt; firebrands preaching the gospel of Chaos had incited the populace to take up arms against their rightful lords. The war that followed had been devastating, with billions put to the torch as Imperial forces were forced to resort to increasingly extreme measures to quell the uprising.

On the brink of utter defeat, the scant remnants of the planet's defenders and the few remaining templars had fled into the blasted, wasteland tundra between hives in a hopeless bid to survive long enough for Imperial reinforcements to arrive.

Hunted by a demented sorcerer who had come to light as the supreme architect of the whole bloody affair, they were perhaps days from being caught and slaughtered when a lone psyker who travelling with the Inquisitorial contingent suddenly demanded that they halt their retreat and make their stand where they stood – across a featureless plain of snow, many miles from shelter or favourable terrain.

For reasons unknown, the Interrogator in command acquiesced to his request. Perhaps they felt that even a fool's hope was better than none, and there was as good a place as any to die.

The psyker had then insisted that they start to dig beneath the snow.

Once again, he was obeyed – they dug for almost a full day, using the few armoured vehicles they had left to carve away vast tracks of dirt and snow. In a break in the excavation, the diviner made his way down into the dig site and began to gesture frantically at the ground, revealing a hidden vault beneath.

Inside, they found the long-lost tomb and relics of Saint Tacita, a hero of the Imperium who had long ago rose up from one of those very same hives. With renewed faith and vigour, armed with those sacred relics, they stood their ground and ultimately emerged victorious, slaughtering their pursuers – including the same sorcerer who had taken the hive world to the edge of damnation.

Bereft of his leadership, the heretics had turned on each other like a pack of rabid animals. The chaos lasted just long enough, as it turned out, for the Imperial relief force to arrive and reclaim the burning hives.

Ever since then, the Herald of Saint Tacita – as he had become known – had served the Ecclesiarchy as a wandering prophet and advisor, coming and going as he pleased, making cryptic prophecies and offering oblique advice to officials, generals and diplomats as he saw fit, with his words almost invariably serving to stave off some great disaster of cataclysm years down the line.

And _he_ had told the Lord Commander to send me here?

He watched my expression as I processed what he had just told me.

"So... what is it about you, I wonder, that would compel the Herald to request your presence here, above every other Inquisitor in the sector?"

I could not answer that question; there was perhaps one gift I possessed that no other Inquisitor shared, and it was not something I could speak of to a priest of the Ministorum.

_I was born on a pirate's voidship far beyond the borders of the Imperium. The man who taught me the meaning of courage and sacrifice was not a man at all, but an alien. How do these things set me apart? Other Inquisitors are older, stronger, have more dangerous allies than even mine. What can I do here that they cannot? _

"I don't know." I told the half-truth. I knew what set me apart; I did not know what relevance that could possibly have.

Perhaps it was even my _lack_ of experience that mattered here – perhaps I should be the one to come because I would most likely fail, and failure would mean some far-off, unknown salvation for the Imperium in the future. Tylian had often said that the future was difficult, often virtually impossible, even for an eldar mind to predict.

"No?" His voice held a faint echo of disapproval, but not surprise. _Your Inquisition is a house built upon secrets. _Even if I did know why, he surely could not have expected me to be open about it. Not with a stranger priest I had just met. I suppressed the urge to release a frustrated sigh; everywhere I turned, I seemed to be confronted with more questions.

Even this answer – that I had not even expected to find – left me feeling almost suffocated with the weight of terrible expectations. Artificial intelligence. The heralds of prophets themselves arranging my presence. Mine, above all others.

"So, Nathaniel." He said. "What is it you have come to ask of me?"

I am not sure that a delicate way necessarily existed for what I needed to ask him.

"A week ago, my team and I entered the Spire in response to an incursion by the Idiran rebels. After defeating them, we descended into the laboratory hidden beneath and found evidence that the magos known as Aurius had been engaging in heretical practices."

"What kind of heretical practices?" Normally, I was almost certain, he would not have asked for specifics – but Aurius was a magos. The question of what might compel someone of such a lofty station to betray the Emperor was one that would intrigue even the most staunch puritan.

Not even taking into account the fact that, as I had already suspected, the Ministorum would have an interest in anything they could hold over the heads of the Mechanicus.

"The Protectorate of Nyria had been experimenting using recovered Astartes geneseed. I believe they learned, in that time, to create their own Astartes using that genetic material. When Idira fell, the labs were abandoned until Aurius found them and restarted the experiments."

"God-Emperor preserve us..."

I bowed my head in agreement.

"What became of the experiments?" Up until this point, his voice had been steady and sure. Only now did it waver.

"Burned by warp-fire."

His eyes widened fractionally.

"Warp-fire?"

"The aftermath of a daemonic incursion. We found his Tech Guards slaughtered. When Aurius descended, we fought. The slaughter tore open the veil a second time, and the laboratory was destroyed in the blaze that followed."

"This Aurius had been delving into those profane arts, as well?"

I took a breath.

"No. Not that we could tell. We found nothing that could have caused it."

Silence descended upon the room after that.

Daemonic incursions did not _just happen_. Such a thing was inconceivable; it was something you might see in the final days of a world about to be dragged into a screaming warp rift – not on an otherwise healthy world like Idira.

It was a matter I had avoided concerning myself with until this point precisely _because_ I had no explanation for it. Nor was there anyone I could turn to for answers – mere _knowledge_ of the daemonic was enough to beckon damnation.

I had seen it. Men and women driven mad by foreign thoughts that screamed in their minds and wouldn't stop. I had seen people willingly drive blades and nails into their own ears to try and deafen themselves to the voices that came from within their own minds. People had stabbed knives into their own eyes to blind themselves to the monsters they saw lurking in every shadow, waiting to take them.

"I think I am starting to see why the Herald involved himself in this matter." The pontifex said finally, his voice heavy. "How can I help?" He asked simply. No pretense, no requests for future favours down the line. Just "what can I do?"

"I need your tech-adepts."

"You will have them." He answered without hesitation.

My eyes widened in surprise. I had not expected him to agree so readily, no matter what he'd just said – I had not even expected him to admit that he _had_ any without, at the very least, first asking me what I needed them for.

He must have seen my shock, because he continued.

"Before I ascended to the priesthood, I served as a brother in the Templars. I saw it as a calling; to stand up and serve the Emperor by fighting the enemies of Man wherever they could be found. I killed aliens and heretics on a dozen worlds and believed I was making things better."

"My superiors believed I had the potential for greater things, so I rose in the ranks over the years. I proved myself every step of the way, and I felt proud to be serving the Emperor."

He smiled a bittersweet smile made up of the smoke of old memories. Of better and worse days both; of the lost days gone by and old friends no longer with us. It was a familiar expression; I had seen it on too many faces over the years.

"As I rose in rank, I came to know many of the priests giving the orders from behind the lines. I remember being amazed by them at first. In awe – those men were the Emperor's chosen, holy men entrusted to spread the word of His glory. I'm sure you understand."

I did. It was a familiar story. I had felt the same way about some of the senior Inquisitors I had met in my days under Sydon. He took a deep, weary breath and met my eyes. I didn't press him; I think I knew what he was getting at. There are too many selfish men in our Imperium. He was banking on the belief that I was not one of them.

"Things always seem much simpler when you're young, do they not?" His gaze wandered to the side, looking at that portrait of his. I felt an insistent nudging at the back of my mind, telling me that this was somehow important. I brushed it aside and listened.

"I have watched you since you arrived here. I believe you serve the Emperor above yourself. Perhaps I am wrong; but I have my faith, and it tells me that I should help you. So I shall do so, and may the Emperor's mercy find me if I am wrong."

I did not know what to say other than to thank him. So I did that.

We stood, and shook hands. His grip was still firm, despite his years.

* * *

><p>"Did you get what you were looking for?" Emelia asked as I emerged from the pontifex's chambers. I nodded in response.<p>

"You okay, boss?"

"Yeah. I'm alright. Just..." I glanced back at the way I came. _"What is it about you, I wonder?" _Lathe's words echoed in my head.

I sat down again in the second row, feeling suddenly weary.

"What is it?"

"When we got here, I asked if you could find a place for us to lay low if things went bad."

"You did." She nodded, looking concerned. "Have they?"

"Not yet." I said. "But I think they will."

"Okay." Another nod. "It's a sub-level of an old warehouse, in one of the industrial districts they don't use much anymore. Nobody really goes there, so it should work fine for us. Some old surveillance systems that should still work if we can patch them up, too."

I nodded absently, the first steps of a plan forming in my head. The fact of the matter was, there _was_ someone I could turn to for answers about the daemonic and the profane. Someone who I could trust absolutely.

"I need you to find someone for me." I said finally.

Emelia nodded. "Okay. Who?"

"Tylian."

"An eldar?" She hissed, her voice low so that nobody would overhear. The Sororitas were still lurking nearby, after all. "You want me to bring an eldar _here?" _

I nodded heavily.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I need him." I said simply. "I've been an inquisitor long enough to know that I'm... well, in over my head. And the most dangerous person I can still trust... it's him."

Emelia looked like she was about to protest.

"I know, Em. You're practically a one-woman army. I trust you with my life." I sighed. "I just don't think that's going to be enough this time."

She didn't look reassured; if anything, she looked more concerned than ever.

"If he's as dangerous as you say he is, how can you be so sure you can trust him? He's an _eldar_, boss."

"He risked his life for me. More than once. He didn't have to."

"What if he _knew_ who you'd become? He could even have saved you just so that you'd call on him when you needed him, someday. Eldar are... that's what they _do_, Nathan. They manipulate. They lie."

"_Why did you save me? You could have just let me die. Why didn't you?" _

"_I have lived for over eight hundred Terran years. In that time I have lost many of my friends, and I remember them all. I carry them with me wherever I go, in the hollow places they once made whole. I saved you because you are my friend, human. I would not see you die." _

"He doesn't. Not to me."

"How can you be so _sure?"_ Emelia asked, frustration lacing her voice.

"I trust you." I said simply. "I don't know everything about you – where you came from, where you were born, all the things you've done in your life. I only know you through the way you've acted around me, and that's enough. It's the same for everyone else. I can only judge him by what I've seen him do."

"He isn't human." She said stubbornly. "I am."

"Aurius was also human, once." I replied softly. "Should I have trusted him?"

She sighed in exasperation.

"How would I even find him?"

"Take the _Wayfarer_. There's a place in deep space where they occasionally listen for messages for people to contact them. Broadcast it, and he'll find you."

"And if he just decides to blow us up rather than listen?" She had faced the eldar in combat, after all; she knew how much chance they would have if the meeting went poorly. Even if the _Wayfarer_ were a combat cruiser – and she was far from it - her chances against an eldar warship would be next to nothing.

"He won't. He'll know it's me."

"And you'll be alone here." She muttered. "No ship, no backup."

"Then you'll just have to hurry back." I smiled with a confidence I did not precisely feel.

"And you're sure about this?" She queried, one last time.

I nodded.

"I am."

She sank back into her seat and ran her hands through her hair.

"Okay." She said to herself.

"I know this is asking a lot."

"You do, huh?"

Emelia wasn't afraid of much; one of the perks of being the most dangerous person in almost every room she went into.

"You know why Pandora stays with me, boss?"

I shook my head.

"It wasn't that we lost. God-Emperor knows we lose enough of the time. It was... it wasn't some mistake that we made, something we could have fixed. Even if we'd done everything right, they'd still have beaten us. They're _smarter_ than we are. _Better_ at war."

"They've been doing it for longer." I pointed out.

"It's not just that. And you know that." She continued. "You want me to bring your alien here, I'll do it. Whatever you need me to do. That's my job."

"Just... I don't know. At least tell me who I'm dealing with."

What to say? I knew a great deal – but what could I tell her that would be helpful? What _should_ I tell her?

"He's a pirate." I said. "An outcast. Prince of one of the largest corsair fleets in the Tempestus."

"The _Tempestus? _Boss, that's _months_ away. There's no time for-"

"You won't need to go that far. There should be a ship listening nearby in the Angelus sub."

"That's still weeks there and back, boss. Idira could go down in flames in that time."

"It could." I allowed. "But what's the alternative?"

"Contact Thale." She suggested. "Have the Inquisition send reinforcements. If there's an AI here, the Mechanicus-"

"Precisely." I cut in. "The _Mechanicus_. If I call for help, whatever help that _does_ come is going to be tangled up in Mechanicus strings."

"And what strings will your eldar friend's help come tangled in?"

"Enough, Em." I said, my tone gently suggesting finality. There was a brief flash of defiance in her eyes along with the beginnings of a retort, but it faded quickly. She slumped back in her chair, seemindly defeated. I was the Inquisitor; it was my call to make, regardless of how she felt about it.

I sympathised; every piece of Imperial wisdom screams not to trust the alien.

What, then, is one to do when the Imperial Guard is off waging a hopeless crusade and the Mechanicus is courting damnation?

"You really think he'll help?" She asked softly. She wasn't arguing now; she just sounded curious. In truth, in our line of work it was rare to find _anyone_ who would help you with no questions asked, just because you asked them to. And Tylian was a powerful man; a prince, with a fleet of starships at his beck and call. The aid of men like that seldom came free.

"Yes."

"Just like that? Just because you ask him to?"

I nodded.

"He will. I'd do the same for him."

"Even with... everything?"

"I don't abandon my friends. Neither does he."

"How long has it been since you saw him?"

"Almost twenty years." Far too long.

"Twenty years, and you _still_ think he'll fly all the way over here because you ask him to?" She still wasn't protesting. I looked at her, frowning. She met my eyes and shrugged helplessly. "Never had a friend like that, is all."

"I'm hurt, Em." I grinned, feigning offence. She looked at me with a start.

"What, so you're saying you'd fly across half a Segmentum if I needed you? Really?" She sounded dubious.

"Of course." I said simply. "Why does that surprise you?"

She looked away and was quiet for a long while.

"Just does, boss." She replied, eventually, her voice soft. "Haven't made a lot of friends in my life. Not real ones."

"Hard to find good people who get tangled up in the work we do." I agreed.

"Mm." She murmured, still looking away. She sounded thoughtful.

We were both quiet for a minute after that. I let my gaze wander across the chapel while Emelia kept her silence.

"Don't get shot while I'm gone, boss." She said at last. I grinned. _You stay safe too, Em. _

"Can't promise you that. Hazards of the job, I'm afraid."

"Well, hide behind Kyriel if you have to." She said, mock stubborn. "Or Rook," she added, as an afterthought.

"They'd probably let me." I remarked dryly. "That's why I don't."

Emelia's head suddenly jolted upwards and she looked right at me, eyes wide.

"Did you hear that?"

"No, I-"

The ground shook; there was the rumble of distant thunder followed by the roar of an explosion, and Emelia was on her feet with a gun in her hand. She moved faster even than me, her hands practically a blur as she reached into her duffel bag and tugged on a flak vest.

I drew my own as the Sororitas started to move around us, making their way outside; Templars appeared seemingly from nowhere and started to usher the last few visitors and pilgrims to safety.

"Ready, boss?" She asked. She looked rattled. I put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

"Let's go."

* * *

><p><span>Author's Note(s)<span>

A most sincere thank you to everyone who took the time to review; I greatly appreciate every one. I'd just like to take a moment to reply to a few, too:

VulkansNodosaurus: Certainly a valid point to bring up! The Imperium certainly exists in a far worse state than canon; when the dust finally settled in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, it could safely claim just under half of its original territory – somewhere between four and five hundred thousand worlds.

One thing that I always thought was interesting, though, is that while the Imperium is surrounded on all sides by a great many formidable adversaries, many of them aren't necessarily specifically invested in its destruction; the orks and the tyranids, for instance, act more as random forces of destruction than anything else, bulldozing whatever happens to be in their way but not, for instance, deliberately going after strategic targets or the like.

That certainly helped to keep the Imperium intact; notably, in this alternate timeline, the Imperium's smaller borders caused the first two tyranid Hive Fleets to crash into targets other than the Imperium.

The ranks of the Sororitas were quite significantly expanded in the absence of the Astartes, of course, and there are naturally other factors operating in secret to keep the Imperium standing. At any rate, I greatly appreciate the feedback!

giodan: Anything is possible. Though perhaps not in the way you think. Many of the Primarchs are indeed out there and quite healthy, though not all of them are terribly interested in the affairs of the material world these days.

cszolee: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it.


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